


The Chronicles of A Hunter

by chiixil_84



Series: UCI [1]
Category: Chronicles of Darkness - Fandom, Hunter: The Vigil, Mage: The Awakening, World of Darkness (Games)
Genre: Being Hunted, Blood, Blood and Injury, Blood and Violence, Chases, Clubbing, Coffee, Coffee Addict Character, Coping, Curses, Developing Relationship, Dreams, Dreams and Nightmares, Drinking, Drinking & Talking, Drug Use, Drugs, Eldritch, Established Friends, Established Relationship, Explicit Language, Gen, Hallucinations, Hunted, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Injury, Investigations, Major Character Injury, Masturbation, Masturbation in Shower, Mental Anguish, Mental Instability, Mild Blood, Mild Language, Minor Character Death, Minor Violence, Monster Hunters, Monster of the Week, Multi, NSFW, New York, New York City, Nightmares, Original Character(s), Original Female Character(s) - Freeform, Original Male Character(s) - Freeform, Other, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Paranormal Investigators, Past Character Death, Past Drug Use, Past Violence, Pre-Relationship, Recreational Drug Use, References to Drugs, Relationship(s), SHIELD Vibes, Stalking, Supernatural Elements, Supernatural Police Characters, Tags Are Hard, Taskforce: Valkyrie, Threats of Violence, Trapped, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Valkyrie Organization, Vampires, Violence, Walk Into A Bar, World of Darkness, eldritch creature, mental manipulation, mentioned nsfw, supernatural police
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-17
Updated: 2021-02-16
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:41:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 20
Words: 40,369
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25345627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chiixil_84/pseuds/chiixil_84
Summary: Ellie is a normal 20-something girl living in New York City: she goes to work, loves to drink coffee, and ends the day in her studio down on 20th Street. She's grown to love the city, even if it's been hard to adjust to life in its narrowed streets and busy nights.But, there's more to her job as a detective in a dingy office than what others may know: she works to uncover supernatural crimes and to stop the fiends that are harming the city's citizens.Her past may be enshrined in mystery, but her future is certain. She'll need more than just luck to get through her days now, and as an Unnatural Crimes Investigator, Ellie will need to make difficult choices, ally herself alongside the seedier characters of the city's nightlife, and work tirelessly to avoid all-out chaos, all for the sake of keeping New York City balanced.
Series: UCI [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1835515
Comments: 40
Kudos: 8





	1. ultimately

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello!! This is a little intro for my character from part of a campaign I'm currently playing. We're a few months into it, and it's been so fun playing in the World of Darkness. I love the characters at play, and it's so different from any other DND campaign I've been in.
> 
> I hope y'all enjoy!
> 
> Just so everyone can get a decent image of the characters: Ellie looks like Alanys Sarkany!

Ellie woke up drenched in sweat and gasping for breath as she thrashed in the darkness of her apartment, a scream bubbling in her throat as bile threatened to follow. Papers flew every-which-way as something cold dripped into her lap, its bitter, sulfurous smell almost causing her to puke right there. 

Getting up from her desk with a curse flying from her dry lips, the woman stumbled over the field of momentarily-abandoned papers as she wildly smacked at the nearby wall for the switch. One of the hits eventually found its mark, but the sudden light blinded her in the process, forcing another biting string of swears from her. 

Blinking away the spots in her vision as she processed the luckless morning she had woken up to, Ellie took a few moments to reorient herself before looking at the damage she’d unleashed from her panicked awakening. The first thing she did was look down on herself to see exactly _what_ was making her so nauseous – and, with a whine somewhere between disappointment and agitation, she realized it had been her long-forsaken cup of coffee from the night before. 

As she began to kick off the soaked clothing, she turned her gaze upward, muttering a dozen more curses to herself as she took in the rest of her studio. 

Dozens of papers were scattered around the tiny apartment as collateral to her bumbling about, her bee-line to the wall clear from the trail of coffee drippings staining her work. Most of it could be recovered easily – she’d just need to make a quick call to the evidence locker and they’d give her a new set of folders of prior reports from the UCI department – but others would forever be stained and smell faintly of cold brew, as most of the papers were her own handwritten notes and not-yet-turned-in reports of other incidents her department had been handling. 

Honestly, Ellie couldn’t really believe she had even fallen asleep with the amount of coffee she had consumed, but here she found herself waking up from yet another nightmare, all the same. It had been nearly a year of this disastrous morning ritual, but nothing – not forcing herself to stay awake nor attempting to knock herself out for just _one_ good night of rest – had seemed to work for the young woman. If she really wanted to look at the issue under a microscope, it seemed as though the rate at which she was having nightmares was _increasing_.

But, then again, that could just be the stress she was under.

With a sigh, the woman took a moment to rub her eyes as she forced air in through her mouth and out through her nose in a half-assed attempt to calm herself down, wanting to push all of these thoughts out of her head for just _one_ moment. 

The sun hadn’t even come up yet, and she already knew it was going to be a long day. 

Throwing the sopping clothing into her washing machine, she spent a little over an hour cleaning up the paperwork as best as she could. It took another thirty minutes for Ellie to get ready for work, making sure that her notebooks were as collected as they could be – and, still, the woman continued to straighten her uniform as she ran down the stairs to the parking garage, right up until the moment she slid into her dingy car and put the keys into the ignition. Ellie took one last fleeting look in the rearview mirror to check her make-up as she pulled out onto the street, hoping she was early enough to make it through most of the traffic before the rest of New York City had a chance to wake up. 

The morning radio host’s drawling voice became a sort of white noise for her as she rumbled her way through early morning traffic, taking the time to stop by her favorite coffee shop on the way to the precinct to hopefully avoid another spill like the night prior. Thunder rumbled in sync with the passing trains, while a mugginess hung in the air that made her uniform stick uncomfortably to her body. 

The sun was just rising over the city as she parked her car at the police station’s garage, the early morning’s hazy glow mostly obscured by a threatening thunderstorm looming in the distance as a deep-set fog hung over the bay. She hated driving in the rain and was certainly grateful she’d missed it, if only just. 

With another cold brew in one hand and a paint-stained backpack in the other, Ellie entered one of New York City’s 77 precincts to get started on another long day on uncovering the supernatural. 

_It isn’t like there is anything that could happen today that would be worse than this morning,_ the young woman told herself. _There hasn’t been anything overtly supernatural in... ages, really. Why would something new show up now?_ She knew that things came and went in a city as big as the Big Apple, but she just hoped it would stay this peaceful for a little while longer; despite her vicious awakening, all she could remember from the nightmare was a smoldering eye looking down at her, and that was hardly something that she wanted to investigate, let alone immediately blame some sort of supernatural entity for. Ellie knew the rest of the dream would nag at her until she remembered it all, but hopefully, this morning was just a one-time freak-out.

Besides, what else could a bad dream mean?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter's title is a reference to Khai Dreams - Ultimately.
> 
> (Edited 12/1/2020.)


	2. death bed;

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ellie's day is almost too good to be true; but, she meets her newest partner! At least for the new case she's been given.

Work went surprisingly well, for a change; Ellie didn’t have too much to worry about, and mostly worried over paperwork for the majority of the day. It was almost what she would’ve considered as the perfect workday, save for the fact that they ran out of coffee near the end of the afternoon. 

She would’ve asked UCI’s medical examiner if he was willing to go to the nearby café to grab a new round of caffeine for the office, if he wasn’t currently asleep underneath one of the cubicles; he must’ve had another late night if he was _still here_. Otherwise, the woman knew he’d be down at a bar or restaurant working on forgetting the prior day’s events. Though he primarily worked for this division of the police force, he was still a medical officer employed by NYPD. As such, his skills could be (and, often _were_ ) used elsewhere. For the man that she’d known for the better part of her adult life, the ginger knew this aspect of his life didn’t go easy on him. 

That really only left her with the other detective from their office, but the woman knew he was off doing some investigative work upstate for the next few weeks – something about another Sasquatch sighting, or something odd like that. Even if he was here, it would’ve been a tossup if he actually managed to get her coffee instead of some other beverage. (Once, he got her _tea_. It was the last time she asked him to get her any type of food item for her.) 

That really only left her with two choices, both equally difficult given the current standing of her bank account at the moment: she could have it delivered to the precinct and pay the delivery fees and tips to make sure her order was _actually_ correct this time, or she could try and ask Officer Derrik. 

Ellie loathed to ask him for anything more than what he already gave them during their normal shifts – mostly a series of new “unusual” assignments, dozens of cold-case files spanning back the last three decades, and boring paperwork none of the officers really wanted to spend the time doing – but she was extremely tempted to ask the older police officer for his assistance, especially since she still had to spend the time to fix that morning’s accident in her apartment with those files. It was going to be a _very_ long night for her at the office, and she wanted to be prepared. 

She picked up her phone with a sigh, scrolling through her phone’s contacts until she saw the familiar yet rarely used number. Ellie hesitated a moment longer, her finger resting just above the call button on the screen as the ginger tried her best to think of a good excuse to say to him. _Should I just say Dolores is broken?_ the woman thought with a huff, her eyes roving over to the ancient coffee machine perched on one of the 1980s bubblegum pink countertops. Chewing the inside of her cheek, she quickly shook her head to clear the thought. _No, he would never believe me if I started off with that._

Honestly, Ellie was pretty sure Dolores – the coffee maker named by the old guard that worked in UCI before her – was older than anyone that currently worked at the precinct, and she didn’t really even know how old it was even if she had to guess. She’d never seen it being repaired _once_ in the last year she worked here, and yet it still worked as well as (if not better than) any new coffee pot off the market today. Early in her career here, she used to lovingly joke that it was a cryptid that lived right under UCI’s nose, but the old guard had been quick to nip that rhetoric in the bud before it caught on; now that they were gone, Ellie spouted it off as often as she could, and no one batted an eyelash at her words. 

Still, that left her without an excuse to recite to Officer Derrik, and that thought made Ellie more nervous than anything else. Sighing once more, she finally pressed the call button, wincing slightly as she did so. If he picked up and was annoyed at her request, she would deal with the consequences later; hopefully, he’d listen long enough for her to make it worth his while, even if her bank account would cry over another coworker's lunch offering. It would still be leagues cheaper than delivery, though, and that was a fact Ellie was grateful for. 

As the first ring trilled in her ear, a sudden klaxon sounded from the other side of her cubicle wall, jolting Ellie out of her focus. With wide eyes and a spike of adrenaline coursing through her body, she almost leaped over the edge of the cheaply-made panel with a curse halfway flying from her lips as she jumped up from her chair, ready to fight – only to see Derrik standing at the door with a scowl on his face. Immediately, the ginger snapped her mouth shut with an audible _clack_ , grinding her teeth together to keep herself from acting unprofessionally to her _boss_. 

“Really?” he grumbled as he pulled his phone from its holster on his belt, pressing a few buttons on his end with a deeply-set frown already on his face. The klaxon was silenced, and the room fell into an uncomfortable state of disquiet. “I’m right _here_ , Carter. What is it you need this time?” 

“Sorry, sir," Ellie said, breathless as she hastily pocketed the smartphone. “I didn’t see you there.” She could feel her pulse in her ears as heat radiated onto her cheeks, but the officer tried to force her words to remain as even as she could manage. “Actually, I was going to ask a favor from you, sir. But now that you’re here, maybe could I ask you if –” As she spoke, his gaze turned from his ancient Blackberry to meet her own eyes, and a sense of unease drifted across her spine. The woman's words died in her throat almost instantly, but she still managed to choke out a weak, “Nevermind.” 

“Good choice,” the other officer rumbled in reply, stepping further into the office space as his eyes drifted back to his phone. He didn’t say anything more as he roamed around the small, basement-like office, his eyes moving up from his phone long enough to take in the room as if it were his first time being down here. Ellie couldn’t tell if he was more disappointed the deeper into the office he went, or if that was the default attitude that the other officers had when they confronted the UCI detectives. 

“Guessing this is business rather than pleasure?” she asked after a few minutes of silence, swallowing past the lump in her throat as she spoke. The sour expression that twisted onto the older man’s face was more than enough to tell Ellie what he really felt about being here; she couldn’t really blame him, since he (and nearly every other police officer in the NYPD) thought their work was a bunch of ‘mumbo jumbo’ in the first place, and didn’t warrant the funds they received just for minuscule operating costs since it came from those doing ‘ _real police work_.’ “Then, to what pleasure do we owe this unexpected visit to, sir?” Ellie pressed. “We’re not quite ready with those case files you gave us a few days ago, if that’s why you’re here.” 

Another few moments of silence followed her question as the other officer slowly came within arm’s reach of her, his eyes still roaming the old cubicles and piles of paperwork and old coffee mugs haphazardly placed around the space. It made her feel like she was a teenager with an apathetic father coming in to inspect her chaotic bedroom, and it made Ellie feel quite small under his scrutiny.

Eventually, he turned to face her, the older man giving her a long, hard look that she couldn’t quite understand all the facets to. “Don’t worry about the other cases. I have a new assignment for you.” 

Out of habit, the woman turned her gaze down to inspect his hands; usually, he had a box to hand her, or at the very least _some_ piece of paper to offer UCI some guidance on their investigation. This time, he came absolutely empty-handed.

“And the file?” Ellie asked slowly, returning her eyes to his face. “Or is this off the books again?” Otherwise known as: did she have to put forward the dozens of hours of work to figure out if the rumor he was bringing her was a legitimate issue, or was UCI being sent on a wild goose chase for the other officer’s entertainment?

“Something like that,” a new voice chimed in from the doorway, immediately drawing her attention away from her boss’s scowling face. Leaning on her tip-toes to look over Derrik’s shoulder, the ginger could see a man wearing a large black cloak and wide-brimmed kasa. Though she couldn’t see the details of his face, she could tell he was probably just about her age, if only because he hardly had an age line on his face to put him older than twenty-five. The guest took two steps into the room and offered both officers a deep bow at the hip, mumbling something under his breath that was too low for Ellie to quite make out. 

The older officer moved to the side to allow her to see the man fully, Derrik staring at her with his eyebrows raised as if he was asking Ellie, ‘What the Hell?’ Certainly, Derrik was used to the New York City-brand of weird, but this guest of theirs was a particular case of “weird” that seemed to fall more in line with “ _UCI_ weird,” if only because this was an unusual circumstance. _No wonder he brought me this guy,_ Ellie thought with a huff as she watched the guest stand back up to his full height. _The other officers probably didn’t want to deal with whatever is going on here._ Though the man’s eyes were still indiscernible, she could at least make out his lips, now – and they were moving, as if he was constantly whispering to himself. Otherwise, he seemed like a completely normal guy. 

Another moment passed, but neither Derrik nor the guest offered to share any further information with Ellie. 

Crossing her arms over her chest, the woman muttered, looking at the other officer, “I didn’t know the anime convention was coming early this year.” From the deadpanned look on the man’s face, it was clear the reference went right over his head. 

“Carter, this is your partner for this case,” Derrik said instead, gesturing between the two of them. “He’ll give you the information you’ll need, since this is _his_ area of expertise. Play nice, and don’t make any more paperwork for me. Got it?” 

“Yessir,” the woman sighed, giving a half-hearted salute. Derrik didn’t even pretend to offer her one in return as he turned and left as quickly as he could. 

Taking a moment to watch the older officer leave, Ellie tried to center herself for a moment before turning her attention back to UCI’s guest. He hadn’t yet moved from his spot, and looked almost like a statue save for the faint rise and fall of his chest. It almost made the officer want to run up to him and shake him, but even she knew that would be far too rude for the first meeting with a new consultant. Not to mention, it wasn’t fair for her to take out her frustrations from a lack of caffeine on him. 

Grumbling, Ellie moved to the only other cubicle free of ( _too much_ ) clutter and started shuffling a few things from its desk to make room. She made a point of grabbing all the old coffee cups and moving them to the cubicle where the medical examiner was sleeping in; it was his turn to clean the cups, anyway. “You can use this space,” she told the guest after a few minutes of shuffling paperwork and miscellaneous junk. “At least until this working relationship is over, then you can just leave the clutter where it is. Okay?” 

“Okay.” He moved past her and pulled something out from inside his coat – a giant white folder – and placed it down on the desk. Flipping through a few of the papers too quickly for her to take in the blocks of text, he pointed out a few things to her as he went, mostly showing her a few blurry pictures and grainy surveillance images. “This man was killed in his apartment last night.” 

Ellie waited for the man to continue on, but when he didn’t say anything else, she asked, “And, that’s UCI’s business how?” 

The guest flipped through the folder until he reached another page. He handed the folder to her for her to read, but as she did so, he said aloud, “He was completely drained of all blood, with no discernable wounds except for two small marks on his neck.” 

Ah. 

“Well, _shit_ ,” the woman hissed, rubbing her eyes as she handed the autopsy back. “Beyond what pop culture says could do that, what could manage to do that to a fully grown man?” The guest simply shrugged. _Yeah, this guy’s_ _gonna_ _be lots of help,_ the officer thought bitterly as she watched him sit down and begin scouring the folder’s contents. “So, this is your operation, right?” He made an affirmative noise, so Ellie took that as a go-ahead. “What’s the plan then?” 

It took the man a moment to reply, but when he did, it was six short words: “We pay the scene a visit.” 

Rolling her eyes, Ellie went to the other cubicle and gently shook the examiner awake. “C’mon, Jaws. We’ve got work to do.” Once the doctor groaned in acknowledgement, she patted his shoulder and quickly straightened back up, stretching as she did so. _God, this really **is** going to be a long day. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter two!! Ellie meets this guest, and Dr. Jaws makes a (brief) appearance.
> 
> Derrik is confirmed to be the office's cryptid; no one questions his sour face, and no one gets stuck in paperwork Hell.
> 
> Also, ngl, Saeko looks like Itachi Uchiha/Jin Akanishi, Derrik looks like Brian Cox (but with black hair lol), and Jaws looks like Shirogane Kei/Brian Tee. Those are the only important characters insofar! :)
> 
> Hope y'all enjoy!
> 
> (The chapter title is based on Powfu - Death Bed. There will be another companion chapter later on.)
> 
> (Edited 12/1/2020.)


	3. bury a friend

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ellie thinks too much.

Just as it was getting dark, the tentative trio made it to the victim’s apartment, beating the evening traffic by mere moments. They all piled out of her tiny Honda and stepped out onto the cracked and broken sidewalk, looking at a building that matched the dreary pavement at a first glance. It was as nondescript as one could get when it came to a New York apartment building – tall, made from bricks, and no greenery beyond the potted plants by the building’s entrance – but the woman could see the charm in the place nonetheless. The longer she looked at it, she managed to see a few pets sitting in some of the amber-lit windows, while others had big, blooming plants in their darkened sills. 

_So many people live here,_ the ginger thought as she fished her paint-stained backpack out from the back seat, her eyes hardly able to leave the building for longer than a moment. Though it wasn’t strange for UCI to find supernatural things living in such places like this, the fact was that this case was so brutal, and it left the young woman feeling like she was on a razor’s edge. 

Throwing the bag over her shoulder, Ellie looked up to see that Jaws had stayed behind with her while their partner – Lt. Saeko, as he had introduced himself as – took point, his head turning on a swivel as he approached the front doors of the apartment block. Though he’d taken the kasa off back at the precinct and left it in one of the cubicles, he still wore that long, black coat. 

Offhandedly, she wondered if he was hiding more than just folders inside its dark depths, but she neither saw lumps nor pockets to belie that this was anything more than a stylish coat that he was fond of. 

“Shall we?” the medical examiner asked her, his words startling her despite their gentleness. With a quick nod, she swallowed past the lump in her throat and offered her old friend as warm of a smile as she could muster. 

Flourishing a gesture between the two of them, she replied, “Of course; good doctors first, then.” 

He huffed out a half-snort, but didn’t argue with her. 

Following the consultant inside, they realized he’d been waiting in the lobby, a sour expression on the young man’s face. “Sorry,” Ellie called to him as the heavy glass doors closed behind them. “Had to get my bag.” 

Saeko’s face didn’t change, but something flickered in his eyes that made the officer stop in her tracks for a moment, even as he made his way towards the stairwell, not waiting long enough for the two UCI officers to match his pace. 

“Is there something off about him?” the doctor murmured as they began their trek upstairs, lagging even further behind the consultant’s quickened steps. “Or am I the only one that’s getting some seedy professional vibe from him?” 

She would’ve laughed if they weren’t so close to the subject of the conversation. “He’s definitely part of our line of work, Jaws,” she said through the side of her mouth, exhaling slowly as she looked up the stairwell. The officer was barely able to catch the swish of his coat as he walked above them. “I’m just not sure _how_.” 

Beyond telling the duo that he knew about hunters of the supernatural realm – and pointedly expressing that he knew _UCI_ as one of the smaller hunter organizations on this side of the continent – and stressing that his expertise would be a great addition to this case that he’d brought to their attention, Saeko was an entirely unknown entity to them. A part of Ellie wanted to get to know this guy more, if only to answer the millions of questions she had about him; another, more prominent part, couldn’t wait for this expressionless robot to leave so things could go back to the status quo she’d grown accustomed to over the last year. 

Though the ginger was so used to it just the three of them – four, if she wanted to include Derrik, though he was hardly the type to want to be lumped in with UCI – any new addition, albeit a _temporary_ one, made her stomach churn with uneasiness. It was in these churning moments she remembered the other faces of UCI – the ones that ended their short-lived partnerships in a hole six-feet down, their screams the last words she’d ever hear from them. Ellie didn’t like dwelling on this feeling for long, and was at least grateful the case would seem like a rather _short_ one.

No one else had to die. 

“Well,” the doctor said a few moments later, clearing his throat awkwardly as they stopped at the victim’s floor. Saeko was already waiting at the end of the corridor in front of the taped-off door. The woman couldn’t help but stare at him as he feigned interest at the door, his foot tapping impatiently as he waited for the UCI officers to join him. At least he was polite enough to not stare at them as he waited. “We’re just working with him for this one assignment, right? Just until John gets back?” Ellie offered him a shrug; she wasn’t really sure. 

She wasn’t sure of _anything_ anymore. 

“So,” Jaws said even quieter, putting his hands on her shoulders; the gentle action forced her eyes from the man down the hall and up to the dark eyes of the man she’d come to rely on for more than just a few witty one-liners and perfect timing on his interruptions. “Let’s play nice. He seems like a nice enough young man.” 

The choppiness of her emotions waned the longer she listened to her old friend talk, even if the calm only lasted a moment; Jaws always knew how to make her feel better, even when the woman didn’t know she needed the stability. “Thank you,” Ellie managed, giving him a half-smile. “Today’s just been a long one. Y’know?” 

The doctor stared at Ellie in a way that she knew he was analyzing her – something she’d grown accustomed to back in college – but if he came to any conclusions, he was holding that information to himself. Instead, the good doctor replied, a half-chuckle lacing his words, “I can sympathize with that feeling. Don’t think about the worst that could happen, El.” The doctor patted Ellie’s shoulders gently, giving them a reaffirming squeeze as he added, “Focus on the steps ahead, and we can work on anything else around that later.” 

Before she could think of anything to say, he gave her shoulders another squeeze before joining Saeko down at the end of the hallway. 

Ellie took a moment to contemplate his words, chewing the inside of her cheek. _Change doesn’t always have to be a terrible thing,_ the ginger told herself as she watched Jaws and Saeko share a few words before the men ducked into the apartment. _Sometimes it’s the change that’s the best thing about a situation._

Maybe this is what UCI needed? Some fresh blood, even momentarily, to give the trio an ally so they could breathe for a moment? It had only been the three of them for nearly half a year, and it had slowly taken its toll on each of them. 

She knew exactly what the worst was – as did Jaws, as did John – as those facts were drilled into them from when they became officers to the UCI department: death was a matter of _when_ not _if_ it would come for them, and would often overtake the less fortunate people that crossed paths with something of the surreal; the supernatural world took more than it gave, leaving a path of destruction in its wake; they would one day be consumed by this world, but not before it took everything they loved and twisted it beyond recognition. 

Their last “new recruit” survived for only a week before they were killed by something down at the docks during a routine patrol, which prompted the three remaining (and now, only) UCI officers to throw themselves into that case until it was solved. Even still, so many months later, the three of them hadn’t quite recovered. 

Though they hadn’t known what that _worst_ was when joining the force, they sure as Hell did now, having seen their own fair share of just how cruel both halves of this world could be. 

Maybe Ellie was just overthinking this entire situation? 

What _could_ go wrong here, anyway? It was just another ‘who-done-it’ case, and the ginger could name half a dozen of those off the top of her head – sure, none of the victims had their _bodies drained_ , but that didn’t mean it was entirely _supernatural_. 

It was New York City, after all; she’d seen plenty of non-supernatural things that would've been unbelievable had she not seen it with her own two eyes. 

_Besides,_ she told herself firmly, inhaling sharply as she shrugged her backpack onto her other shoulder, _it’s just for tonight. There’s no room to become attached, or enough leeway that could lead to another loss if things go south here._

With that thought sitting squarely at the forefront of her mind, Ellie gathered the courage to join the men in the apartment. Nothing gained; nothing lost. 

Less fuel to have nightmares over. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short-ish chapter, but I was feeling drained trying to write more; it kept getting knotted, and nothing made sense, really. Hopefully this final draft does for y'all lol.
> 
> Hope you enjoy!
> 
> (Chapter name is based on Billie Eilish - Bury A Friend.)
> 
> (Editted 12/5/2020.)


	4. die for you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They take a look around the dead guy's apartment, and come out with more speculations than proof.

The two men had already begun exploring the apartment by the time Ellie waltzed in. Jaws was busy in the kitchen, looking around the barren cabinets; Saeko was staring at the end of the apartment’s hallway, a blank look on his face. 

Ignoring the bits of torn-down police tape tossed onto the floor, the officer took a few more steps inside, closing the door carefully behind her. “What’ve we got so far, boys?” she called out, pulling out her phone to take a few photos. She could see Saeko’s face crinkle at her words, but he didn’t respond; instead, it was the doctor. 

“Everything seems like it’s perfect, except the kitchen,” he started, making an exaggerated movement to show the open cabinet doors. Despite there being a singular (clean) coffee cup beside the sink, there was _nothing else_ in the kitchen, not even a stray bag of ramen or a container of seasoning. Hell, there wasn’t even a coffee pot or tea kettle in-sight to warrant the need for a _mug_. 

Taking a few steps closer to Jaws as he pointed out the rest of the barren space, the ginger chewed on the inside of her cheek as she worked over the possibilities. Finally, she offered, “Maybe he just moved in?” 

With a firm shake of his head, the doctor replied, “Saeko says the guy’s been here for at least five years. Always gets packages delivered to his door, he’s always getting take-out, no visitors...” 

Turning to face their consultant as he wandered deeper into the apartment, Ellie couldn’t hide the bitterness from her voice as she asked, “And why are we just now hearing about this?” 

“Because you didn’t ask,” the man shot back, his voice muffled by the distance and walls between them. 

The two UCI officers shared a look – Ellie’s somewhere closer to anger, Jaws’s somewhere close to exasperation – but the ginger took the moment to rephrase her words. “How would you know any of this in the first place if this is the first time we’re hearing about this case?” she asked through gritted teeth. 

It took Saeko a moment to reply, but when it came, it slightly changed in volume as he wandered through the apartment. “The first call to the operator was intercepted, but there wasn’t enough information in the call to directly get UCI involved at first. I had to get my information in less-than legitimate ways.” 

Whirling back around to her coworker, Ellie stared at Jaws with a look of bewilderment and anger flashing across her face. “ _Don't worry about what could happen?_ ” the woman hissed, eyes wide as she gestured back towards the hallway. “How many laws did this guy break to get us some weird-ass case?” Jaws gave a meek shrug and offered her a tight laugh. 

“Maybe it won’t get worse?” he offered quietly, his eyes flicking between her face and the hallway. “Just tonight, remember? And, I _did_ point out he was feeling kinda shady.” 

Sighing sharply, Ellie had to refrain herself from smacking her face onto the counter. “Hopefully, _we_ don’t get in trouble for whatever ‘ _less-than legitimate’_ ways this guy got his information,” the officer muttered, opening her phone’s note app to jot down, _We’re working with a criminal; do a background check to see what, if anything, he might’ve done before_. 

“Don’t worry, Officer Carter,” Saeko replied as he returned to the main room, pulling off a black glove as he stopped beside them. “I’m a professional when it comes to this type of work. Don’t worry about whether or not I’m up to snuff, and I won’t question your work practices.” 

Beside her, she could hear the doctor sigh through his teeth; she could just feel her own emotions threatening to overtake her, but Ellie forced herself to file them away for later – the words _just for tonight_ kept cycling through her head, almost like a mantra to keep herself sane, and it helped take the edge off the rage bubbling inside her chest. 

“If that’s what you want to call it,” she eventually said instead, waving her hand towards him dismissively. “Just don’t let it bite us in the ass later, and I’ll be fine. ’Kay?” 

Saeko exhaled through his nose, but said nothing more; instead, he turned his attention to the little office space in the otherwise empty living room. He started poking around its contents, sometimes staring for far too long at some of the objects. It almost reminded her of a kid thinking they had x-ray vision and could look through something if they looked hard enough; or, just someone reading something incredibly tiny without their reading glasses. 

Though she wanted to just watch him – partially with curiosity, mostly due to not trusting him with the crime scene – she wanted to figure out more about the victim’s day-to-day activities. And... if she were being entirely honest with herself, it wasn’t _much_ : with the lack of groceries – Hell, with the lack of _cutlery or dinnerware_ – it didn’t seem like this guy had had a home-cooked meal in a long while. But, whether that was by choice or necessity she couldn’t immediately tell: as she made a quick trip throughout the rest of the apartment past the living room, _every other_ room was absolutely barren of any sign of someone who’d been living in the same apartment for half a decade. 

The man had a single toothbrush and bar of soap by the sink in the bathroom; he didn’t even have a _towel_. 

“Either this guy is the epitome of _minimalist_ , or this wasn’t his only residence,” Ellie said to Jaws. 

“Maybe he lives here for work, and has a family outside the city?” the doctor replied. “When I worked for an office, I had quite a few of my patients bringing in their city girlfriends one week and their wives at the next appointment.” He looked half-lost in his memories for a moment before he shrugged nonchalantly. “Some people just live that lifestyle. It’s not that uncommon that men with affairs do everything they can to hide it, even if this is that end result.” 

The officer mulled it over, looking back over the images she’d collected of the apartment. Sure, that explanation made _sense_ , given the nature of this modern world and all the troubles it brought with it – but this case wouldn’t have been brought to their attention by Saeko if it was as mundane as that. 

_No,_ she thought, shaking her head firmly. _Something else is wrong here._

The look on Jaws’s face let her know she’d said that thought out loud, but at the moment she didn’t care. “Jaws, were you able to find anything else in the apartment?” Ellie asked, turning to the doctor. “A random receipt, a jar of peanut butter, hand sanitizer, _anything?_ ” 

He shook his head. “Beyond some _fucking_ expensive formalwear that’s probably as old as I am,” he started. “I got nothing.” 

Ellie looked over into the living room to see Saeko arms-deep in the guy’s desk, carefully piling things out onto the floor all around him. It looked random to her, but the woman didn’t want to disturb him or his process; so, as she walked towards him, she stopped just outside his work radius. “So, did _you_ find anything interesting?” 

“A few correlations here and there,” he said flatly, pointing to a few of the piles. “He has an ancient laptop in one of these drawers, but doesn’t seem to have the charger on hand. The one he uses more often is up top, with some tax files for the firm he works for all neatly put on his desktop.” 

“Do you think it’s a cover?” the officer asked as she shoved her hands into her pockets, rocking back on her heels as she took in the information. “The tax consultant gig, I mean.” The consultant shook his head. 

After some more mumbling, Saeko eventually responded, “No. It seems like a legitimate endeavor.” 

She tilted her head, not quite understanding his line of thought. “Then why bring it up?” 

“The hours for the firm are all night-based.” The man on the floor, surrounded by a dead man’s things, took another moment to mumble himself before pointing to the wall above his head. “Not to mention, all the windows are covered.” The windows were indeed covered with thick, black curtains; but, still, Ellie felt lost. 

“And?” she asked when Saeko didn’t offer any more information. “What does that mean for us?” 

“He’s a night owl with a bad taste in furniture?” Jaws offered. When Ellie turned to look at her old friend, she saw a lopsided grin stretched out across his usually-stoic face, and it made her chest flutter as some of the stress began to melt away. It was rare nowadays to see the doctor acting so silly and she appreciated seeing it, especially working a case as odd as this one. If nothing else, it was comforting to know he was still trying to make those around him smile. 

_At least he’s having fun,_ she thought, turning back to Saeko. Though her friend kept his smile after his quips, the consultant’s expression went from thoughtful to downright annoyed. 

He put down the items he was currently fussing over and looked between the two UCI officers, a deep-set frown on his face; he almost looked like a disappointed father looking at two kids who thought baseballs and windows were a good combination. “Some hunters you lot are,” he managed through gritted teeth, “if you can’t even tell this was a _vampire’s den_.” 

“That would make sense, given the dead guy’s autopsy report,” the doctor agreed after a moment. “But what would he be doing here in New York doing other people’s taxes? Do they really pay with an arm and a leg?” 

If looks could kill, Saeko’s would’ve evaporated the doctor where he stood, his gaze turning murderous immediately. Just as the consultant opened his mouth, Ellie interjected, “Look. There’s weird, and then there’s jumping to the conclusion this guy was a _vampire_ ‘weird.’ We need a bit more proof than a few blackout drapes and nothing in his kitchen.” _Or the rest of his house,_ she didn’t add. Though this was all entirely suspicious, she saw no other logical way to jump from _victim_ to _supernatural entity_ and didn’t want to offer any horrendous news to the next of kin that, hey, their loved one was of the Nosferatu-kind. 

Shutting his mouth with an audible _click_ , the consultant stared at Ellie for an extended moment before sighing through his nose. “Come help me look through this, and we might get somewhere.” 

“Sure thing, boss,” the officer replied with a sigh, settling down on the floor by him. She held her hand out to Saeko, and he handed her a random assortment of papers. Splitting the stack in half, Ellie handed some of it to Jaws as he sat down beside her. 

Paperwork, she could handle; thoughts of vampires and drained bodies, she didn’t want to get into that headspace. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! Quick update again. This chapter was much easier to spit out than anything else. If it seems like some characters are jumping to conclusions more quickly than they should, there's a reason for that. It'll come in due time though. :)
> 
> Hope y'all enjoy~
> 
> (Chapter title is based on the acoustic version of Starset - Die For You.)
> 
> (Editted 12/7/2020.)


	5. animals

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Being a nosy neighbor is sometimes a great thing, especially when said-neighbor lives next to a weirdo.

Hours passed fairly quickly in the apartment despite the grim situation the trio were in; it got to the point where Ellie decided to order some take-out, and she started to order _quite_ often once midnight hit. 

If someone was out of a specific drink? She already had the app open and was reordering their last one before they could even finish their statement. When someone complained their food was too dry, Ellie was already darting out the door to wait for the next delivery person, ordering the same dish but from a different chain across the city. While Saeko complained that she was ordering far too much food for a single night’s job, the officer would wave a hand and say nonchalantly, “You’d do the same for me if the roles were reversed.” 

(She knew he wouldn’t have; the three of them had just met, after all. The officer didn’t know much about him, but could tell that he was the type of guy that would need more than a name, a handful of take-out orders, a few hours between them to warm up to anyone he was working with, let alone the UCI troupe.) 

Though Ellie could imagine just what their consultant thought about her and her work ethic for the numerous times she’d run out of the apartment, she just didn’t find it useful that three people were looking over the same piles of a dead man’s things without refreshing themselves. In reality, she spent the time waiting for the delivery to show up to take her time walking through the building to chat with any of the building mates she caught outside. Many of them were coming home from late-night shifts, while some were rushing off to start theirs – others, however, had their own opinions on officers seemingly always in the building for this one case, and it had them on edge. 

Given what she’d seen the few times she’d been brought on for a legitimate police case – and nothing that needed UCI’s specific involvement – Ellie didn’t blame some of the residents here. She didn’t want to cause them any trouble, so she would always apologize and leave them be. 

It might have taken her most of the night, but the officer was able to confirm some of Saeko’s prior intel, managing to gain a few extra bits even the consultant hadn’t been able to glean from the apartment dwellers. 

In the extended time she had between walking from the apartment, speaking with those willing, and getting her deliveries, Ellie took the time to mull over the details they had so far about the victim. Many of the neighbors explained the victim was a nice young man, was somewhere in his late thirties to early forties, and only seemed to bring two people over (presumably, an older brother or an extremely young uncle, and a younger sibling or _maybe_ even a kid of his own); he was always polite and offered to take out the elderly neighbors’ animals for late-night walks, and would even take care of out-of-town residents’ plants or pets to save them a few dollars. Hell, he even did their _taxes_ for a discounted rate, a fact that every single person Ellie spoke to gushed over. 

He didn’t seem to have a mean bone in his body, but beyond that, no one seemed to know anything of depth about the guy; not a single one of them got his _name_ right, for God’s sake. So, she took everything they were saying with a grain of salt and only accepted the bits of information that came out of multiple people’s testimonies. 

Like, the fact that the guy had never owned a vehicle in his life, and instead had an old bicycle that looked straight out of an ancient black-and-white film. Or, that he never talked about going to church or any dates he might’ve been going to, but was the quietest neighbor any of them had ever lived near despite seemingly knowing far-too intimate details about the residents in the building. 

All in all, it made Ellie’s stomach turn over at the thought that he could’ve been a _vampire_. Didn’t they seem to have such a horrible reputation, where pop culture and folklore were concerned? 

As the clock approached the witching hour, Ellie could barely hear any movement in the building beyond the random television far too loud for her tastes and the occasional cry of a child; she could feel herself becoming exhausted even as she sipped on the millionth cup of coffee of the night, and all she wanted to do was take a long, hot shower and sleep for a week. 

But, as she rounded the final corner and started back to the victim’s apartment, she saw an ancient little lady peeking her head out from her doorway, the glint of her golden brimmed glasses immediately catching the officer’s eye. 

“Morning, ma’am,” Ellie began quietly, offering the woman a smile as she started to pass her door. However, as she came closer, the lady swung the door open as wide as the chain would allow her to, and she began to wildly gesture for her to approach. 

Cautiously, the ginger did – partially out of curiosity, mostly out of confusion. This lady looked _desperate_ , and it brought back the churning feeling in Ellie’s stomach the closer she came. 

“You’re here about Tony, right?” the woman half-whispered from behind a shaking hand, her eyes darting down the hall to the victim’s door. Following the woman’s eyes, the officer finally realized just who this woman was: _the immediate next-door neighbor._

Leaning in close to the door, Ellie nodded fervently, almost dropping her coffee as the adrenaline pulsed through her. “I am, ma’am.” She shifted slightly to get as close to the doorframe as she could, standing between the woman and the victim’s apartment. Still, the woman seemed to stare right through her, even as Ellie blocked her view. “I’m terribly sorry if we’ve kept you up. Can I help you with anything?” 

The elderly lady waved a hand, a harsh _tch_ escaping from behind her teeth as she muttered, closing her eyes as she spoke, “Dear, I’ve lived here my whole life. Noises don’t exactly bother me anymore, given the proximity.” 

Nodding understandingly, Ellie waited for the woman to continue; thankfully, it didn’t take long. 

She went on a full rant about the guy – Antonio Marthus, 39-years-old and single dad of a 19-year-old boy – and how he _seemed_ perfect, but she knew he wasn’t: whenever an animal would go missing in the building, Tony would always leave for an entire day and night, and would come back looking like he hadn’t slept in a week. If pressed, the man would express that he’d been out looking for the lost animal, but when no flyers would ever be found with Tony’s information on it, she had started to wonder if he was an occultist doing weird things to the animals or simply selling them for cash. Though he’d offered to do everyone’s taxes in the building, she’d never taken him up on the offer, seeing as how every time an elderly person would move out of (or, unfortunately, die inside) the building, Tony would be the one working with the funeral personnel about the deceased’s affairs even if they had next-of-kin lined up to do so; she didn’t want someone like that knowing her affairs, especially since she only lived off of disability and retirement checks now. On the off-chance that someone would recognize Tony from a local bar in the downtown area, the man would ignore them for months (sometimes _years_ ) afterward, as if they never even existed; she never knew which bar it had been, but the woman could swear he always looked out of it after a weekend spent there, and it frightened her to wonder if he was someone that would go crazy if he got too high of a dose. 

“It was always strange,” she continued on after finishing her lengthy exposition, breathless. “No one else could piece the puzzle together – _but I could_.” She smiled widely as she said that, but it wasn’t a nice smile as she did it. “That’s why I called the police in the first place when he didn’t leave when poor Mittens from A-3 went missing this past Tuesday. Nothing else fit, except that he got into something he couldn’t get back out of.” 

“But I’m guessing they didn’t come by to investigate,” Ellie responded, taking another sip of her almost-forgotten coffee. It wasn’t exactly a question; she knew the department had very strict ways to push out missing person reports, and if _that_ was the explanation this woman gave the operator, the officer wasn’t surprised it was put into Call Limbo. 

Instead, however, the woman shook her head. “Oh, no,” the neighbor said, a short laugh escaping her as she looked up at Ellie. “That young man you had with you was the one that came by. He was nice enough, I suppose – could be more expressive, if anything else – but he kept asking me about Tony’s comings-and-goings.” She gave another laugh – more grounded now, and far less nervous than she had been in the beginning – and added, “I may have pieced together that Tony wasn’t _normal_ , but I’m not a mind reader; he was a very private person, right up until the end. I can only give you what I saw.” 

_But you seemed to have seen a lot,_ the ginger didn’t say. Rather, she took a moment to collect herself before responding, “Well, thank you, ma’am, for all of this information.” She stepped away from the doorframe, offering the elderly woman a smile even as she continued to reel from the woman’s words. “It will definitely help us bring a close to this case. Please, get some rest. It’s been a long night.” Fishing in her uniform’s breast pocket, Ellie pulled out a card with UCI’s information on one side, and her work phone on the other. “If you have any more details you can remember, please, don’t hesitate to send word.” 

“Of course, dear,” the elderly woman chimed as she took the card. “You take care as well, mhm?” 

Offering her the best smile she could (given that it was approaching 3AM), Ellie replied, “I wouldn’t dream of doing anything else, ma’am.” 

With that, the woman closed the door, and the officer was once again alone in her thoughts. 

_Saeko talked to this woman? If she told us the same information, why wouldn’t he tell us any of this ahead of time?_ she thought as she took a long drink from her coffee. She swirled the cup for a moment, watching as the liquid lightly sloshed onto the lid’s brim, a million questions rolling around in her mind. 

Though part of her wanted to shout and curse and end the working relationship with Saeko early – _‘just tonight’ be damned_ – she knew it would have to wait; the guys needed to hear what the neighbor had told her, and Ellie needed to find out if she was going to get that shower sooner or later, despite the harsh questions swirling around on her tongue with the bitterness of her coffee. 

As they turned to her as she entered the room, she hadn’t even managed to get a greeting out before noticing their current project sitting out in front of them. 

_They found the charger._

Stumbling over herself as she rushed across the apartment, Ellie couldn’t find any words to say to them as she stared at the ancient laptop charger as if it were a miracle; they, however, had plenty to say to her. 

“After searching through every scrap of paper in this guy’s desk, it wasn’t hard to find the password,” Jaws began, holding out a stained, age-warped sticky-note to her. She carefully took it, looking over the scrawl on the paper. He waited, his other hand resting carefully over the keyboard; a flashy page sat on the browser before him, but from this angle, she couldn’t clearly make anything out. 

“‘Diablerie’?” she read off, handing it back to the doctor. Both men nodded in sync. 

“It means a few things,” Jaws continued, pushing his glasses back onto the bridge of his nose. “But that’s not really what matters; it’s the fact that he uses it in so many of his personal notes, even on certain tax documents from the other computer.” 

Ellie handed it back to her friend, chewing the inside of her cheek again. “Were there any clear connections between when he used it on the work forms and in his notes?” she asked, taking another long drag from her cup. 

“No.” This time, it was Saeko; he looked thoughtful once again, but wasn’t staring at either of them. His eyes looked bloodshot, and he almost seemed too energetic for the time the three of them had spent in the apartment that night. “It seemed entirely random at best, and at worst, the ramblings of a madman.” He pointed to the windows again, and then the vents directly opposite of the covered windows. “He had plans to put cameras in the apartment, but couldn’t seem to figure out how to do it. He had a consultant coming by next week to help him out, when he died.” 

“So, what? Was this some random burglary-gone-wrong or was he actually murdered?” 

“That’s the question, isn’t it?” 

Ellie frowned at Saeko’s response, deciding to take another, though longer drink rather than reply to him. 

_Just tonight. Just tonight. Just tonight._

“We could start at his workplace,” the doctor chimed in, breaking the silence between them. “They’re open for a few more hours at this rate, and maybe we can get more insight on what this ‘diablerie’ thing is.” 

“Or,” Saeko added, pointing to the computer, “we can see what this place is about.” 

Walking over to stand behind the men crowding around the desk, the officer could finally see what was on the screen. It was a very simple, albeit old, website for a bar called ‘Memento Mori.’ All that was on the site was the text ‘through invitation only.’ 

“Well, shit,” Ellie sighed, running her free hand through her hair. She was _not_ expecting to give this level of commitment to this case. “When do they close?” 

Jaws clicked through the website for a moment, before finding the hours and facility’s phone numbers. “They’re open 24-hours, except on Saturdays, it seems.” 

Now _that_ had Ellie stumped. “A bar closed on _Saturdays?_ That’s weird, even for us.” 

Leaning back in the chair and stretching his arms back behind his head, Jaws replied coolly, “That’s _exactly_ what I was thinking.” 

She and Jaws shared a look, and the officer knew her friend was feeling the exact same dread as she was. Nothing good ever came from that kind of oddity, and it came down to two options: human trafficking, or mafia-like practices. Without another word, however, the two were already setting up to leave, keeping the night’s work piled up all around the victim’s apartment. 

“Would I even want to know?” Saeko asked as he followed them out. 

If Jaws said anything, it didn’t register for the ginger; she, however, didn’t have the energy in herself to reply, and simply made her way back down to her car as quickly as she could. She could hear the good doctor’s footsteps and voice drifting behind her, but all of the information was swirling in her head in a way that made her feel like she was drowning in it all. 

In the time it took her to situate herself back into the Honda, Ellie barely noticed that it took Saeko much longer to come back down to the street level than it took for her or Jaws, but at this point, she didn’t really care. She knew whatever path they chose – to Tony’s old workplace or the bar – it would leave them struggling to keep their head above this mess long enough to give it the proper closure it needed. 

She really, honestly wished John was here; they could use the extra manpower tonight. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another quick update! I really wanted to get more of this out, and it seems like after I got that first chapter out, everything else has been fitting into place.
> 
> So, Tony's been up to some extra weird stuff -- but (2/3rds of) the party still don't think he's a vampire, so they're trying to treat this as a normal investigation. What's the worst that'll happen?
> 
> Next chapter, I'll show where they decide to head off to. Hope you enjoyed so far, however!
> 
> (Chapter title is based on the Living By Fiction cover of Maroon 5 - Animals.)
> 
> [Edited 12/26/2020. Happy belated holidays y'all.]


	6. growing pains

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just a car ride, nothing to see here.

Once they situated themselves in the tiny Honda and started driving, Saeko finally spoke. 

“Where are we going, Officer Carter?” 

Despite feeling his eyes staring at the back of her head, her eyes never left the mostly-empty road. She didn’t immediately respond to his question, partially paying attention to the gentle trill from her phone’s GPS and mostly thinking about the case as it currently stood. 

Although nothing overtly supernatural had come along to bite them in the face, _yet_ , it didn’t mean Ellie could just go with the flow with this one and let the case carry her. There were too many variables she still couldn’t see – what the Hell _diablerie_ meant, why it was so important to this random tax consultant that was way too involved with his neighbors’ lives, why this _tax consultant_ was even a target for a crime like this in the first place – and even if they had someone on their side that seemed to know as much as (if not more than) UCI did, it didn’t settle the questions raging in her mind. 

A quiet cough from the good doctor drug Ellie out from her thoughts long enough for the offer to respond, “I’m heading to the tax house. It’s closing soon, isn’t it?” Her phone gave another soft trill as the GPS redirected the route, so just as the light ahead of them turned yellow, Ellie jerked the car into the turning lane and sped through the light before making another short series of sharp turns. 

A grumble came from the good doctor in the passenger seat as he complained about her driving, but Ellie simply offered him a soft apology as the route straightened out once more. 

He was used to her poor driving skills; he just wasn’t used to her erratic driving _and_ bitter behavior. 

Maybe she _would_ take him out for dinner later, just to relax after the night they’d been having. 

“Besides,” the officer started, her throat feeling hoarse as she spoke, “it’s further away than the bar is, and we need an invitation to get in.” She fell in line behind a semi stuck at a red light, so Ellie sat back in her seat and took a long drag from her coffee, a sigh of frustration escaping her nose. “It’s not like we can get it tonight, even if we tried.” 

Her eyes flicked up to the rearview mirror to check on the man in the backseat for a moment, still feeling his gaze on her, but was surprised to see Saeko looking outside at the New York scenery instead. A shiver ran up her spine as she put her eyes back on the truck ahead of her, chugging more of her coffee as the silence stretched between them. The feeling of being watched didn’t subside, and it was starting to put the officer on edge. 

“Don’t worry about that,” the consultant said after another bout of silence, shrugging slightly as he leaned further against the window. “I can get us in.” 

Ellie choked on the swig of coffee she had in her mouth, coughing wildly as the liquid sprayed all over the steering wheel. Jaws leaned over to help pat her back, offering her a napkin as she waved him in thanks. 

Bleary-eyed, the officer made a few sharp turns to get out from behind the semi and into a nearby parking lot. Wiping her mouth with the napkin and rubbing her eyes with the back of her other hand, the officer fully turned her entire body to face the man in the back seat. 

“ _How?_ ” she all but shouted. “It would take us at _least_ a few days to figure out how to get an invitation – or, Hell, a fucking _warrant_ – to get past the bouncer. How can you just _get in_ a place like this?” 

Cocking his head to the side, blinking owlishly, Saeko simply replied, “I have my connections.” He fixed his coat slightly, and turned his eyes to the world outside once more, seemingly ignoring her existence now. 

Watching him for a moment longer, opening and closing her mouth as she tried working through her own surprise as the burning in her lungs subsided, the officer eventually turned to face the equally dumbfounded doctor in the passenger seat. He offered her a helpless shrug, looking just as lost as she felt. 

Groaning loudly, Ellie kicked the door open and threw herself out of the Honda, leaving it to idle in the middle of the dark parking lot. She stormed to the trunk and opened it, rummaging around the full space for a moment before pulling out a backpack she hadn’t seen in ages – and, honestly, had hoped she wouldn’t have to need again. 

Returning to her forgotten seat, she found Jaws already in the driver’s spot, wiping down the rest of her spittle with another napkin. Offering him a weak smile, she shot him another quiet ‘thank you’ as she jumped into shotgun. Without saying another word, Jaws carefully shut the door and started heading in the direction they had just come from while Ellie dug through the contents of the backpack. 

With a triumphant, “Ha!” the officer pulled out a tightly wrapped black package and started unfolding it, working herself out of her uniform as she did so. 

The doctor said nothing while she changed into a tight black dress and hurriedly put on some make-up, managing to come out looking somewhat decent despite his equally-poor driving maneuvers; they had done this so often over the last year, it was almost second nature to them. She couldn’t even count how many late-night operations UCI had fulfilled where it had just been the three of them – Jaws, John, and herself – performing undercover duties in other cases, as if they were in some poorly-funded television noir show. It almost made her feel at home, if not for the grumbling from their consultant. 

“You seem far too comfortable doing this,” came the sharp retort from the backseat, Saeko’s words twinged with something Ellie couldn’t quite pinpoint. 

Jaws shifted in his seat as he slowed his roll at a red light, taking a moment to readjust the rearview. “When it’s just the three of us, sometimes we take on roles we don’t necessarily care for.” He gave a nonchalant shrug, then added, “It’s part of our job.” 

More shuffling and mumbling came from the backseat, but Ellie couldn’t make it out; she didn’t really care what he had to say, if she was being honest. However, she did see Jaws’s fingers grip the steering wheel a little tighter – so, whatever Saeko said, she knew for a fact he heard it, and whatever it was had been enough to upset her companion. 

Leaning over to pat her friend on the shoulder, the officer offered the doctor a smile. “C’mon. Let’s just think of this as the drug sting back down at the docks back in August. Hmm?” 

Sure, it hadn’t been the _smoothest_ operation UCI had performed – with John as their look-out and sniper rolled into one, with Jaws as the leading role and Ellie as the doctor’s backup – but at least they were able to stop a shipment of black-market pain killers from getting out onto the streets. Now that she was thinking back on it, the officer wondered what kind of supernatural entity UCI had been dealing with at the time, what with their blood-red eyes and shrieking in some other language she couldn’t identify – but, if she was being entirely honest, supernatural things just seemed to blend together after a while. So, she dropped the thought once more, glad to never see those creatures again. 

A moment passed, but the good doctor managed to give Ellie a weak smile in return, relaxing under her grip as the light turned green. “You still have my hat in that bag, or am I going in this naked?” 

With a laugh, Ellie pulled away long enough to dig through the bag once more. Producing the hat with a flourish, the woman replied, “Never leave home without it. It’s my good luck charm!” 

Smiling widely now, Jaws took the hat and put it on his head as he wiggled out of his coat awkwardly eventually revealing his black polo beneath. It was a miracle they never hit anything, even as his hands sometimes completely flew off the wheel to pull the jacket aside. “Good!” the doctor bellowed, leaning over as he gave her a wink, his glasses slightly falling from the bridge of his nose as he tilted his head in her direction. “This would’ve been so _boring_ otherwise.” 

The officer could feel the confusion radiating from the backseat, but she went back to focusing on her make-up instead, humming the tune of whatever song was playing on the radio. The less she had to explain to the consultant, the better. 

It was just easier that way. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a smaller chapter, but that's okay. I just wanted something to transition from the apartment to the bar without too much fanfare. The dress Ellie ends up wearing is a Kaximil Spaghetti Strap dress. Nothing fancy lol.
> 
> Next chapter: the bar! How will Saeko get them inside?
> 
> Hope y'all enjoy!
> 
> (Chapter title is based on Alessia Cara - Growing Pains.)
> 
> [Edited 01/09/2021.]


	7. you don't know

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Saeko pulls Ellie aside to ask a favor from her.

Jaws parked the car a few blocks away, and the UCI officers began working out a quick plan of action, just in case. They figured that the walk to Memento Mori would give Saeko enough time to do whatever he needed to do to get them in, and would give the trio a place to return to if anything went south without being easily stopped. Both of them knew it was safer to put the car at a distance so if anyone was trailed, they could call ahead and meet elsewhere or attempt to lose the trackers; it also meant if one of them got caught and didn’t manage to make it out alive, at least the others would have a chance to survive. 

The consultant thought they were being too paranoid; the UCI officers countered that they could name off several people who once thought the same, and those coworkers were no longer around due to this very situation overcoming them. 

“Just wanna be careful,” Ellie said, taking one last look in the mirror of the car before they set off to the club. “We don’t know what we’re going to be up against in there.” With a sigh, she flipped the mirror back up and exited the car; her look wasn’t _date night perfect_ , but in a seedy bar, the woman knew it would do just fine. 

"Besides,” the good doctor said as he sidled up to the officer’s side, another lopsided grin plastered on his face. “We’re here for information, right? What better way than to try and blend in?” Grumbling, Saeko fell in line behind the UCI officers, but didn’t complain further; honestly, he looked too lost in his own head to be worrying about them. 

As they walked, arm-in-arm, Ellie couldn’t help but feel more confident than she had in a long while. It wasn’t often she spent an evening with one of the other officers in an undercover capacity – it was generally Ellie on her own, with John acting as a last resort to tie up any loose ends if anything went wrong and Jaws on the sidelines if anything went wrong with _her_ – but this was a role they seemed to naturally fall into, even from the earlier days of their friendship. 

It probably didn’t help that she often got into shenanigans in college; she couldn’t _count_ how many times Jaws had appeared just in time to help her out of a horrible situation, sticking by her throughout it no matter what the end result was. He was a genuine friend in a world swarming with shadows, and it kept her grounded to know he was there for her. 

Especially when the nightmares started. 

About halfway to the bar, Ellie’s phone alarm went off. Taking it out of her clutch purse, she looked at the time and sighed. “God, it’s already four,” she said, showing the men beside her. “Whatever we’re going to do here, we have to do it fast. Saeko, you said that you could get us in, right?” 

The expression on his face went from apathetic to solemn, and he said, “Of course. But, Officer Carter, may I have a word with you?” He nodded to Jaws, adding, “Could you get a place for us in line? We won’t be long.” 

The UCI officers shared a look – halfway contemplating whether or not they could trust the consultant, really – but Ellie nodded to Jaws and gave him a smile as she said, “Sure, Saeko. We'll meet up with you in a moment, doc?” 

The good doctor patted her arm gently before sliding his from hers, tipping his hat lightly. “Don’t keep me waiting for too long, now.” 

She waved at the doctor as he left, waiting a moment longer before turning back to Saeko. For the first time since she’d met him, he looked nervous. “What’s up?” she repeated, hoping her tone wasn’t coming across as rude. “Do you need something?” 

“Something like that,” he replied, his voice dropping low. He looked around the empty street before beckoning her closer; she did, though reluctantly, watching where her feet fell as to not catch her heels in a grate from a misplaced step. 

Several inches away now, she could fully take in the clothing he wore; the coat looked much heavier than something that was _just_ a coat, and it looked almost like it was reinforced with Kevlar (though, she couldn’t tell from _this_ distance). It made the officer wonder why a man would always be carrying around something reinforced, if he wasn’t always a target of some sort. 

_He just keeps getting stranger and stranger,_ Ellie thought, chewing on the inside of her cheek again. She heard his voice as he began talking, but it wasn’t really making any sense to her – something about _Adamant Arrow_ and another thing about _Japan_ – and the longer he spoke, the more confused she became. 

The officer really did try to make sense of it, but after another moment she stopped him. “Look,” she began, as gently as she could. He stopped speaking immediately and just stared at her, his breathing almost non-existent as he focused on her. “Half of what you’re saying is going right over my head – so, please. Try again, but slower.” A thought popped into her head, so she quickly added, “And try to keep in mind, I probably don’t have any grounding in what you’re trying to tell me in the first place.” 

With a deep sigh, Saeko rocked on the back of his heels and looked around once more. He spent a few moments in silence, the only sound between them was their breath and the distant trains; then, he spoke. 

“There are things we need to discuss, as you’re the highest-ranking officer amongst the other UCI officers.” 

“Well,” she began slowly, feeling the heat rising into her cheeks, “I never really _thought_ of it that way, but I guess you’re right to think that, given the circumstances, but –” 

He continued on, not even registering she’d spoken, “I know you know very little about the work I’ve done before this case, and that’s quite alright with me.” He took a step closer to her, and his size made her feel so _small_ , even in her heels. “What I need you to know is that if I ever step out of line – for the law or otherwise, and I put people in danger –" He grabbed her hand and held it to his temple, his grip on her wrist like iron as he forced her fingers into the shape of a gun. 

Ellie struggled against him, but he wouldn’t let her go; he simply stared at her, his eyes once again blood-red, while the expression on his face was so _somber_. 

“Let me go,” she grunted, trying once more to pull away from him. 

“Not until you _promise_ me,” Saeko replied, his grip tightening. He sounded so strained, almost as if he were begging her; all the officer could think was that he needed to _let go_ of her, _now_. 

Flustered and beyond frustrated, Ellie snapped, “Fine! If you act out of turn, I’ll put you out of your fucking misery. Just – _God_ , let me _go!_ ” As she enunciated her last few words, she kept trying to pull away from him; on her last yank, her hand slipped free from the consultant’s grasp. Taking a few steps back towards the street and out of his arm’s reach, she took her wrist in her other hand and rubbed it carefully, already feeling it beginning to bruise. “You’re such a fucking _weird_ consultant,” she hissed as she stormed off, trying not to cry. 

_Feeling utterly humiliated? Check._ She kicked at a stray can, biting back her tears as she watched it roll down the street. 

_Going into a bar with totally ruined make-up? Most definitely, check._ Ellie touched at her cheeks as gently as she could to hopefully (discreetly) fix her make-up, but without her mirror, she knew she was doomed. 

_Confused as Hell about his request?_ ** _Fucking_** _check._ The officer had seen many consultants flitter in and out of UCI’s hold, but this guy took the cake _and_ the bakery shop with it; the sheer audacity he had to ask her, a _police officer_ , to do something as horrible as _cold-blooded murder_ as if he were instead asking her to pick up milk. 

Whatever world he lived in, it was certainly not this one. 

As she walked up to Jaws, Ellie could see his face fall the moment he turned to look at her; she managed to choke out, “ _Don’t_ ask, and I won’t want to rip his arm off more than I already do.” 

Moving back to his place beside her, he asked, “I _knew_ he was a fucking creep. Are you okay?” 

With a bitter laugh, Ellie replied, “As best as I can be when he gripped my arm like a vice and treated me like a dog on a leash. He asked me to –” Her voice dipped down low as she whispered, “– _shoot him_ if he overstepped! Whatever the Hell that means.” 

“You should’ve right there,” the doctor muttered, his words tight. “Look, we can always come back later. We just have to deal with the judges for a week to get a warrant, maybe we can get lucky and get them on their good days. We can call Derrik and tell him that this guy isn’t working out, and can move back to this case when John gets back next week.” 

Shaking her head, Ellie swallowed back her anger as she repeated, “ _Just tonight_ , remember?” The two shared a look – a sad, _angry_ look reserved for only the worst of cases – but finally, Jaws relented. 

“Where did he go, anyway?” he asked, doing a full spin to take in the entire street. 

Ellie shrugged. “Who cares? So long as he gets us in, I don’t care.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This went by pretty quick! I was a little stuck on a part of this chapter (partially misremembering some things, mostly just trying to make it WORK), but I got through it.
> 
> Into the bar we go, hopefully!
> 
> Hope y'all enjoy!
> 
> (The chapter's title is based on Katelyn Tarver - You Don't Know.)
> 
> [Editted: 01/14/2021.]


	8. not an addict

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Into Memento Mori they go! Ellie hangs out with a few drunk girls and ends up finding out a few things about the victim, but not enough to explain things; she also comes in contact with 'Bliss,' but isn't sure what to make of that, either.

The duo didn’t have to wait very long before Saeko returned to their side, looking around almost nervously as he tucked an ancient brick phone into the depths of his black coat. 

“Took you long enough,” the doctor called out as the consultant made his approach, a deep-set frown on both the men’s faces. “Where’d you even go?” 

Half-heartedly offering him a shrug, Saeko replied, “Time zone difference, Doctor. I had to call a few times to get through.” He patted his chest, as if that was where he put the phone, and continued, “Be thankful I was able to make the call at all; it is late at night, after all, and my connections don’t like having their happy hour interrupted.” 

With that said, the consultant went back to seemingly ignoring their very presence, focusing his gaze at the flashing Memento Mori sign at the club’s entrance. 

The UCI officers shared a look, unsure of what (if anything) to say; neither of them had enough knowledge to know if their partner was bullshitting them, but what he was saying also didn’t sound like it was _entirely_ untruthful, either. 

A beat passed, and Ellie offered the doctor a half-hearted shrug; in turn, Jaws turned his ire back towards Saeko, shooting the man nasty glares as they slowly inched their way to the front of the line. 

However, the consultant was either none the wiser or simply didn’t care. 

If she was being honest, the officer wasn’t sure what bothered her more: the man’s bored demeanor, or the fact that he was acting like nothing had happened between them a few minutes before. Nonetheless, she felt more comfortable with the good doctor beside her; she didn’t need him to fight her battles for her, but having his support made all the difference. (She _swore_ that she would remember to thank him after this was all said and done; Lord knew this guy needed a break from all of this, and if Ellie could help in any way, she would do it for him in a heartbeat.) 

As the trio approached the bouncer, Saeko remained just as silent as he had been beforehand. If he really did manage to get them an invitation, he was keeping to himself, right down to the wire. On any other assignment, she would’ve been a nervous wreck with not knowing if Saeko really was able to get the one thing they needed to put a dent in this case – but, the way Saeko reacted earlier had her even _more_ nervous than that. 

_What could make a guy act like he was no better than a wild animal?_ she wondered, unable to peel her eyes away from the strange man standing with them, not caring if anyone noticed. _I’m certainly not his handler, and I’m **no** killer, even if he did cross a line. _She knew something was off about this entire thing – and she knew the consultant wasn’t telling her something, but couldn’t quite grasp _what_ that was. Perhaps it had to do with the organization he came from and some strange customs they had? Or maybe this was his first time in New York and it was throwing his confidence off enough for him to behave like someone was out to get him? 

Whatever it was, it came from that fucking weird conversation they’d just had; she’d figure it out, one way or another. And even if she didn’t, their working relationship would be over by the end of this case, so he could go and ask murderous requests from his next partner instead. 

Her gaze turned to the other patrons waiting to get inside as she mulled over her thoughts, more questions than answers popping up as time stretched on; though she desperately wanted answers, she was more determined to get this night over with. The more Ellie looked around at those standing in line, she suddenly realized who they were: _goths_. But, these people weren’t the Hot Topic-brand of "goths”; these were _shaved head and piercings_ “goths,” and the three of them were sticking out like sore thumbs amongst the crowd of niche fashionistas. 

For once in her short career as an undercover cop, she felt entirely out of her league here – especially in this _clubbing_ dress of hers; even if it was black, she didn’t think she’d have the dress code needed for a place like this. There was dressing dark, and then there were _gothic-goths._

Leaning over to Jaws, she pulled on his arm harshly to bring him in close to her. A yelp escaped his mouth as she hissed, gesturing to the others in line, “You didn’t say this place was a _gothic club!_ ” 

Before he could manage to utter a word, his eyes followed Ellie’s movements to take in their surroundings. His face scrunched questioningly for a moment before his eyes went wide, a curse leaving his mouth as soon as the realization hit him. 

“ _Shit_.” 

They watched as a group similarly dressed as the UCI officers were turned away at the door, and another series of curses left both officers’ mouths. Saeko turned to face them, an eyebrow raised, but neither of them made any effort to rope him into their conversation; so, he returned his gaze upward, the expression on his face far too calm for the situation at hand. 

Jaws rubbed a hand across his face frustratedly before muttering, “The site didn’t say anything about a dress code.” He looked at her, then added quickly, “I double-checked, so don’t give me that look!” 

Ellie tried her best to keep her emotions in check, but she was starting to _sweat_ nonetheless. “This is going to be too close,” she replied, silently begging her face to relax. “God, I hope this works.” 

“This guy’s contacts had _better_ get us in,” the doctor huffed, crossing his arms over his chest. “We’ve put off far too much for this to go wrong now. The last thing we need is for him to ditch us at the door.” 

“He wouldn’t do that,” Ellie insisted, her voice tight. The doctor shot her an incredulous look, but all she could do was shrug in response. (She could’ve sworn she saw Saeko look over his shoulder at her, but told herself that she was just being paranoid.) “It's just a hunch,” she muttered, not quite able to meet his eyes. 

_Not a really solid one, but one nonetheless,_ she didn’t have the courage to say, the words banging around her head like a ping-pong championship. 

She didn’t know much about their consultant, but _that_ thought was the only one she would bet her life on. 

The officer could feel her old friend’s gaze staring long and hard into her, but still didn’t dare meet his eyes; she knew he was trying to read her, and he was _good_ at it. Ellie simply hoped that today would be one of the rare days he trusted her, and wouldn’t pry. 

Finally, after an eternity, the doctor finally spoke. “This’s been one of the hardest partnerships to deal with,” Jaws sighed, shaking his head. “Hopefully, it pays off.” Translation: _I hope you know what you’re betting on, Ellie._

The weight of all her worries fell from her shoulders as if she was shedding the world’s heaviest responsibilities; it almost made her swoon, from how relieved she felt. Instead, the officer swallowed past the lump in her throat to reply, “Have I ever been a poor judge of character, Jaws?” 

He laughed, and the stress coiling in her chest relaxed somewhat at the sound; she missed hearing him so happy, even if the circumstances were odd at best. “You know me better than that,” the good doctor said between his laughs, readjusting his glasses back onto the bridge of his nose. Jaws bumped his elbow into hers gently, adding, “Would I really question you, even if I thought there was a chance you’d listen?” 

Smiling back, the officer replied quietly, holding her hand out to him, “Then next dinner’s gonna be on me if I’m wrong.” 

He grasped it firmly and shook, meeting her gaze as he did so. “You’re _so_ on.” 

Soon after their bets were placed, they found themselves standing before the bouncer: he was built like a Clydesdale, and looked like he could push a mountain over with little effort; his head was entirely shaved, save for his eyelashes, and though he had no other body modifications or visible tattoos, it made Ellie nervous looking at him too long. 

Like, staring at a dead spider on your pillow _nervous_. 

Despite the anxiety she felt, Ellie did her best to push past the feeling to offer her best smile to him; she could feel Jaws doing the same beside her, if his suddenly-tense body language was anything to go off of. Before she could say anything, however, Saeko stepped directly in front of them and droned out, “We're here.” The bouncer’s eyes flickered from the UCI officers’ faces to the consultant’s, eyebrow ridges raised questioningly, until a hazy look overcame the man’s face. 

Ellie almost jumped forward to grab ahold of the man, afraid he was going to faint. However, in the next moment, the odd look on the bouncer’s face was gone, replaced by a half-smile as recognition swept across his face. 

“Come right on in, then,” the man cooed, a wicked gleam in his eyes. “Welcome to Memento Mori. We’ve been expecting you.” 

Saeko inclined his head to the UCI officers, gesturing for them to move ahead of him. 

Hurriedly, the duo followed the consultant’s motions; he took his time following them inside, taking a moment to say something to the bouncer that was quickly drowned out by the club’s harsh bass. 

As they left the streets behind them, Ellie could barely hear the bouncer’s loud voice over the continuous thrumming of the music inside; she did, however, manage to see him turn away every other guest that came after the trio. 

_Was that Saeko’s doing?_ she wondered, watching as he slowly came up beside them. _What could he have said to make the bouncer basically close up shop?_

But it wasn’t like knowing that information was detrimental to the case; Ellie was just curious, and found their consultant to be even more of an enigma than she originally thought. 

Moving further inside the club’s belly, she saw a few hundred people shuffling around on the dancefloor and throughout the surrounding dining areas; she remembered in her earlier days at UCI how many other seedy bars just like this one she’d been to, and it brought back so many memories that it almost made her sick. 

Despite the intense nausea she felt, one thing was absolutely clear to Ellie: she needed to insert herself into a group, and quickly, if she wanted to be effective at finding anything about their victim. 

As she took a step forward, the officer felt a hand pulling her back. She half-expected Saeko to be the one grabbing her, but was immediately relieved when she saw it was Jaws’s hand on her instead. “Wait a minute,” he called out to her, gesturing his head back. “Let’s talk.” He shot a pointed look at Saeko, adding in a firm tone, “ _All_ of us.” 

With a shrug, the consultant followed them. 

Hiding inside one of the bathrooms near the entrance, the trio was finally far enough away from the bass to use somewhat-normal voices to speak to one another. Saeko did a quick check through the other stalls to make sure they were alone before any of them began speaking. 

Jaws went first, his voice solid despite his fingers shaking, “I’m going to wait at the bar and ask the tender what he knows about the Marthus guy and the notes he wrote on nearly everything.” 

Putting her hands on his, Ellie gave him a gentle squeeze. “Then I’ll insert myself with some of the party-goers and find out who knew him personally, if not just find out what people have heard about him,” Ellie added, nodding along to the doctor’s words. “Maybe I can find out more about the type of _partying_ he conducted here, if not any clubbing habits and rituals he might’ve had.” 

They turned their gazes to Saeko, who simply shrugged. “I’ll look for the head of his operation.” If not for the flat expression on their face, she might’ve thought he was asking them a question. 

But, the woman didn’t question him; this would be a group effort to pull off, and they couldn’t screw this up. 

Nodding in agreement, the trio exited the bathroom and were left to their own devices, but not before the UCI officers told their consultant, “Text us if you find or need anything!” Saeko said something, but the club’s music drowned him out as soon as they stepped away from him. 

Ellie looked back to see if Saeko was still talking, but noticed he was already walking away from them by the time she turned her head; she made a note to ask him what he said later. 

She stayed by the doctor’s side until he went up to one of the open chairs at the extremely busy bar, then went to work on finding a good middle-ground set of women she could join. She needed a group that didn’t look _too_ dedicated to the gothic lifestyle, but one that she could meld into and easily pass as one of their own. 

Thankfully, she’d done this exact thing enough times to pick her targets carefully, so she knew it wouldn’t take her very long. 

_Speaking of,_ she thought as her eyes hit her target. Off to the left side of the dancefloor in a booth large enough to seat twelve, a small group of very-tipsy girls quickly accepted Ellie into their ranks, especially when she introduced herself as a new patron to the club. At first, the women mostly talked about mundane situations about their lives outside Memento Mori, but the officer eventually found a way to drop in questions about Tony Marthus. 

“I had a date with some guy tonight,” Ellie began, pouting as she looked out onto the dancefloor. “But I think he stood me up.” 

Almost in unison, the trio gasped, horrified at the worst-case-scenario she brought up. “ _Who_ , girl?” 

Sighing exaggeratedly, the officer answered, “Some guy named Marthus.” She flicked her hair over her shoulder and scrunched her face up as she acted as though she was thinking hard. “ _Tori_ , I think? Or maybe it was Thomas?” 

“Oh, you mean _Tony?_ ” one of the girls – Susan, a middle-aged accountant with a shaved head and tattoos all over her uncovered chest and shoulders – giggled from behind her cup. “He is _such_ a freak when it comes to this scene, and he never misses a party.” She tilted her head back and drank the rest of her alcohol before adding as an afterthought, “I think this is the first time he’ll be missing one of these.” She paused again, then asked, blinking slowly as she stared at Ellie, “Did he ever say why he couldn’t make it tonight?” 

“Nothing!” the officer wailed, hiding her face in her arms as she crumpled against the table. “He just _ghosted_ me!” The girls tried their best to console her, but she knew they would be too drunk to notice she wasn’t _actually_ crying. In any other scenario, Ellie would be ecstatic to have a group of strangers reacting this gently to some random person; in this situation, however, it just made her gut twist uncomfortably as the ginger continued to squeeze information out of these women like lemons to a reamer. 

Another one of her groupmates – a third-year college student, Ty, with piercings all over her face and hair that glowed under the blacklight of the booth – huffed, sounding irritated, “I can’t believe he’d do that to you! He’s never been the type to stand someone up, but he _was_ acting weird the last time I saw him.” The other girls nodded in agreement, sharing their own experiences despite their slurred speech. Ty looked around the group, then asked, “Where’s he been, anyway? He owes _me_ something, and I’ve been waiting to collect that rain check from him.” 

At the mention of that ‘rain check,’ the officer propped herself up from the table, wiping at the non-existent tears at the corners of her eyes. “What’s that mean?” she asked, but her words went unheard. 

“I don’t know,” the third – Haley, a 20-something single mother of two with a single streak of neon pink in her black hair and the most gothically-dressed out of the women – sighed dejectedly, frowning deeply as she finished the last of her drink. “So far, it’s just been the younger ones.” She pushed the cup away from her, sighing exaggeratedly. “ _They’re_ not as fun to be with.” 

Susan piped up, still giggling, “But what about Dylan, though? He seems sweet enough.” Turning to face Ellie as if suddenly remembering she existed, the woman turned around in the booth to point out towards the dancefloor, her giggles now coming out like hiccups. “Maybe you’d want to meet him instead?” 

The other two girls shared an almost disgusted look behind their friend’s back, and it prompted Ellie to ask, trying to follow Susan’s shaking finger, “Dylan? Who’s he?” There were dozens of guys on the dancefloor, and even more in the surrounding lofts; the ‘Dylan’ she was trying to point out wasn’t that obvious, and it was starting to make Ellie feel a little frustrated. 

Despite Susan’s best efforts, it took the other two girls to also point out this ‘Dylan’ for Ellie to finally notice him: he was grinding on the dancefloor with another girl – “ _A new one, it seems_ ,” as this group called her, “ _just like you!_ ” – that looked so out of her mind, it amazed Ellie that the poor girl was standing up at all, let alone dancing. 

“Oh God,” Ellie gasped, her hands flying up to cover her mouth. “Is she okay?” 

“It’s the Bliss,” the three girls said nearly in perfect unison, their combined voices drowning out the music for a moment. 

Ellie, however, still felt lost. “What’s ‘Bliss’? Is it like LSD?” 

Ty laughed, shaking her head. “No,” she started, leaning in close enough that the officer could smell her cranberry and vodka-laced breath. “It’s even _better_.” 

As the girls pulled back and started talking about their own experiences with ‘Bliss,’ Ellie watched as Dylan dragged the girl from the dancefloor and towards a hallway across the club from her. 

_Shit,_ she thought as panic washed over her. The women’s voices fell to the wayside as Ellie fumbled with getting her phone out of her clutch, her fingers shaking as she texted both of her partners. She prayed autocorrect wouldn’t screw with her too badly to prevent the men from understanding her message. 

[ **Weird guy taking girl off dancefloor;** **gonna** **try to get to her before something happens.** ] 

Without waiting for a reply, she excused herself from the girls – “To get more drinks!” Ellie called back with more enthusiasm than she felt, earning herself a few whoops from the trio – and made a bee-line to the bar, ducking around dancers and what appeared to be more Blissed-out clubbers. 

She expected to see Jaws there – but, for whatever reason, wasn’t anywhere to be found. 

_Where the fuck_ _are_ _you, doc?_ the officer thought, whipping around to face the rest of the club. She did another quick sweep over the area looking for their partner, but found that she couldn’t find the consultant, either. 

Biting back a curse as panic started to rise in her chest, Ellie decided she’d go outside and see if she could find that poor girl and make sure she wasn’t being assaulted; the officer didn’t want to think what the ‘worst-case-scenario’ would be in this situation, and didn’t want to risk the girl’s safety simply because she couldn’t find her partners. 

She didn’t want that to be on her conscience, too. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This has been SUCH a hard chapter to write; I wanted to make sure I got as much information in as possible without it droning on for ages, but I didn't want to break this up into multiple chapters and leave it choppy. So, 3k words it is!!
> 
> We get more of the interactions between Ellie and Jaws, and I hope I can show more of their prior relationship as the chapters continue on; Jaws's player was such a light-hearted guy, and made everything so fun and silly despite whatever was going on. Saeko's character had been expressed from his player to the other players, but he was still an enigma to the UCI officers that it left so much unsaid. I hope I caught that level of mystery in this chapter.
> 
> Dylan looks like Michael Yerger. That is all.
> 
> Hope y'all enjoy!!
> 
> (The chapter's title is based on K's Choice - Not An Addict.)
> 
> [Editted: 01/14/2021.]


	9. kissed a girl

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the alley behind Memento Mori, secrets are shared and stolen.

Stepping outside the warm club and out into the cool night air, she was absolutely shocked to see Saeko and Jaws already waiting there, smoking and chatting quietly about something. While the good doctor had his arms crossed, the cherry on the cigarette in his hand long-since forgotten by whatever conversation they carried out, the other man carefully balanced his cigarette in his lips, flicking the ash skillfully with a slight tilt of his head. 

Approaching the men, her heels clicking cacophonously on the asphalt, Ellie opened her mouth to question what was going on – and more importantly, why they just left her inside, _alone_ – just as a groan drifted up from the ground. 

Pausing a moment to turn her gaze to meet its owner, Ellie almost jumped as she saw the weird guy – Dylan – knocked flat on the ground, a sizeable bruise already forming on his cheek. 

Alarm bells rang in her head as she took in the sight, unable to determine if she was more _upset_ or _impressed._

“Thanks for the text message, Officer Carter,” Saeko drawled after a moment, inhaling slowly. “You saved us the hassle of having to figure out a way to get him alone.” Swallowing past the lump in her throat, Ellie’s gaze drew back up to meet the consultant’s; as he spoke, smoke lazily drifted from his mouth, and she was almost reminded of a dragon – but, unlike a dragon that might’ve had _some_ emotion on its face, the man looked like he wasn’t even checked into their conversation anymore. 

Her mind went back to the _chat_ they had back on the sidewalk outside the club, and now she could somewhat understand why he treated himself so differently: either someone trained this guy to hide his emotions to an _insanely perfect_ degree, or he just had none in the first place. 

Ellie wasn’t sure what option scared her more. 

“And the girl?” she asked tentatively, hooking her fingers nervously along the hem of her short ( _short, short_ ) dress hem. Until she’d walked out here, Ellie hadn’t realized how _cold_ it was, and she wished she would’ve brought a jacket. 

The men looked at each other for a moment; the officer’s gaze went from Saeko’s to the good doctor’s as they remained quiet, until Jaws gestured to the end of the alleyway. Peering past him, Ellie saw the form of the woman catching her breath, watching them all drunkenly. She was whispering something slurred and down-right mean, if the woman’s look was anything to go off of; whatever was going on in her head, it looked like she was having one Hell of a bad trip. 

“Oh my _God_ ,” Ellie hissed, her hands covering her mouth as the reality of the situation hit her. “Is she okay?” Her voice turned vicious as she added with a snarl, “Did he do something else to her?” 

Waving the hand that held his cigarette, the cherry unceremoniously falling to the ground at the motion, Jaws replied with a hum, “Nah. Whatever he did to her was before we came outside.” 

“He was necking her out here in the alley, though.” Ellie’s eyes moved from the consultant to her friend and then back to the former, taking in the pair warily. As Saeko spoke, his boot connected to the guy’s chest, not quite like a kick but certainly as if he was trying to snuff him out; another groan escaped Dylan's lips from the pressure, along with a curse in a language she couldn't immediately recognize. He continued on, unfazed by the man beneath his boot, “She didn't seem like she was in her fullest capabilities, so we stepped in to try and help her as best as we could.” 

Finally resuming her slow approach, Ellie took a few more hesitant steps forward to get a better view of the darkened area. “Are we going to get her help?” she asked as she pointed to the Jane Doe at the alleyway’s dead-end, the woman’s voice lilting as she started to laugh at some unheard joke. “She doesn’t look well.” _Maybe she took a higher dosage than she was supposed to?_ the officer thought, chewing the inside of her lip. _Bliss is supposed to be better than LSD, supposedly, but if this is the reaction its users have..._

“Got off with the operator just a few seconds before you walked out,” came the doctor’s answer, a shaky breath leaving him as he took another puff. Ellie watched the smoke rise high above their heads, struggling as she tried to focus on Jaws’s words. “I don’t know what she’s on, but it doesn’t seem like normal drugs. When we tried helping her, she wasn’t exactly in a _receiving mood_.” He turned his arms over to show Ellie the horrible marks on his arms – though the skin remained unbroken, they were covered in marks that already seemed to be bruising. “Hopefully, the EMTs have a better time handling her.” She crossed her arms as she reassessed the situation, feeling a little stuck. 

“The girls I was hanging out with inside were talking about something called ‘Bliss,’” the officer said after another few moments of silence, half-hearted shrugging as she looked down to the perpetrator’s face; he looked like he was struggling to reorient himself enough to sit up, and Saeko’s boot wasn’t helping with that effort at all. “They wouldn’t explain it to me, but told me that a _younger one_ like this guy could help me find out if I really wanted to.” 

A laugh bubbled up from Dylan’s chest at her words, and it sent ice down Ellie’s spine. “It wasn’t like she didn’t consent to anything I did to her,” he cooed to the trio, the laughter twinging his words that sent another shiver down her spine the same way a bloody handprint on a glass pane would. “That’s what happens when you come to Memento Mori; you become part of the prey, so the wolves can play.” 

Saeko pressed his boot even more firmly into the downed man’s chest, earning him a painful yelp for his efforts. “Come again?” the consultant asked, his tone far too calm for the amount of pressure he was exerting onto Dylan. “I couldn’t hear you over your _groveling_.” He pressed a bit harder, and Ellie could’ve sworn she heard the man’s ribs creak painfully as a scream escaped from him. She wondered if anyone could hear him from inside, or if it was just something the residents here were accustomed to. 

Facing her old-time friend, as if expecting him to look as horrified as she felt, Ellie instead came face-to-face with a calm Jaws that looked almost as emotionless as their partner did. “What the _fuck_ ,” she hissed, her words barely above a whisper. “You’re just going to sit here and watch this happen?” Her friend gave her a shrug, but wouldn’t meet her gaze. 

Flicking his cigarette nervously, the doctor began, shaking his head slowly, “Ellie, you weren’t _out_ here. You didn’t see what we did. He –” 

“Did nothing that warrants this type of humiliation _or_ abuse!” 

Jaws finally looked up to meet her glare, his shoulders sagging as the two regarded each other; she didn’t even need to tell him that this was wrong, he _knew_ what her limits were. The way he still couldn’t manage to look at her only confirmed her thought that whatever he and Saeko were talking about had changed her friend, even if it would only affect him for this moment. 

They might’ve been a unit to focus on supernatural things, but these entities still deserved _some_ level of respect. She’d be damned before becoming another cog in the abusive machine, or let any of her teammates follow into that cycle. 

Moving to face the consultant, she pushed down the bile threatening to spill out as emotions – somewhere between anger and shock and anxiousness – bubbled in her chest. “Saeko,” the officer began, her mouth feeling unusually hot as she spoke. As she spoke, she could hear how shaky her own words were. He turned slightly to look at her, his hair falling across his face as the consultant barely shifted to acknowledge her. Taking this as he was finally listening, she went on, “ _We_ don’t do this.” She moved her hands between the UCI officers then held her hands open to him, as if asking him to reconsider his current actions. “Don’t do this.” 

When he didn’t respond or move, the woman tried once more, her words dropping down to a whisper, “ _Please_.” She wasn’t brave enough to say, _If we can help it, we don’t cause harm to others, even if they might deserve it._

A moment filled with Dylan’s pain-filled whining echoed all around them, but eventually, Saeko relented to her request, peeling himself off of the man on the ground. She released a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding, taking a step away from the consultant as the tension rolled off her shoulders, the moment passing without issue. 

The second the boot lifted off of him, Dylan took one unsteady gasp before his body became wracked with coughs. “ _Thank you_ ,” he choked out, offering her a bloodied smile. Something flashed in his mouth as he did so – a gold tooth? or perhaps some kind of jeweled mouthguard? – but his smile fell just as quickly as it came up. He turned his gaze disdainfully at her partners, continuing on venomously, “At least _someone_ here has some sense left in them. Brutes, the lot of you.” 

Saeko simply turned his head away, taking the moment to light another cigarette; Jaws, however, looked like he wanted to throw hands. 

Stepping forward, placing a hand on her friend’s elbow, Ellie snapped, “Stop the _fucking_ fighting.” Whipping around to look at the consultant, she pointed a finger at him. “ _You too_.” When she was absolutely sure neither men would continue the petty fight and allow themselves to be goaded further, she leaned down, just out of his reach unless he decided to lunge forward, and said, “We have a few questions for you. If you behave, we might be able to work around a few things.” 

“Such as?” he asked, scooting back slightly to lean against the brick wall of Memento Mori. He looked so casual sitting on the ground – a knee up, a leg extended, his arms resting against the upright knee, his head tilted slightly, a smile on his face that one would put on when asking about the weather – and it made Ellie frustrated to see. 

But, they had a job to do – and that didn’t include beating up pretentious assholes. 

Standing upright, the officer began ranting off, “Like, how about getting you off the hook for whatever you were going to attempt with the girl –” The officer held up a finger; then, flipped a second one up as she quickly added, “– numerous drug charges, with what we’ve already got on you about Bliss, and –” She held up a third finger, continuing, “– and, maybe, if you provide us with names of your supplies and other drug jockeys, we could make your lifetime stay in prison a little more _comfortable_ than gen-pop would be for a pretty kid such as yourself.” She leaned down somewhat, tilting her head. “Let’s avoid that, shall we?”

As she spoke, he rubbed a hand across his mouth, pulling away some blood; he sighed, shaking his head as he wiped his hand onto his pants. The moment she finished, a wide smirk crossed his face, but Dylan didn’t speak on it – instead, he asked, “And if I don’t? What’ll you do then, _officers?_ ” He let off a bitter laugh, adding, “Your laws don’t affect me. You probably don’t even know what I am, do you?” 

Ellie had noticed the expensive watch, the carefully manicured nails, and the shoes that looked more expensive than a month’s rent in her studio – so, her guess would’ve been old money. 

She’d taken down old money boys before; he wouldn’t be any different. 

However, before either UCI officer could respond, Saeko took another step forward, planting the boot once again on the guy’s chest and knocked him back into the wall with a hard _thunk_. He leaned close to Dylan’s face and hissed, “ _You_ don’t get a say.” 

Despite this aggression, Dylan continued laughing as the consultant pressed harder into his chest. 

Ellie and Jaws made a motion to pull the consultant off of Dylan, but as they reached the man, Saeko shifted slightly to face them. There was an expression on his face that rocked them back onto their heels, partially in surprise. 

It wasn’t like he was showing _pain_ , but that was the feeling Ellie understood when looking into his eyes. It was unsettling, like looking at a hermit crab using a baby doll’s head as a shell, and left a horrible weight in the woman’s stomach that made her want to _scream_. 

“I’m sorry you’ll have to see this,” Saeko ground out, his eyes flickering between the duo. “I wasn’t expecting things to go this way.” 

Without waiting for a response, he turned back to the man and _literally stuck his fingers_ into Dylan’s skull. 

A scream bubbled in Ellie’s throat, but just as quickly as it came forward it evaporated a second after; she realized there was no blood coming out of the wounds – little holes? – Saeko’s fingers made in Dylan’s flesh. The consultant was mumbling to himself as this insane event occurred, and neither Jaws nor Ellie could find the words to fill the suffocating space between them. 

Hours seemed to pass as the moment stretched on, the silence burning agonizingly as they waited for this to come to an end; though, despite however long this scene continued for, time only ticked forward five seconds. 

Saeko did eventually pull away from Dylan, wiggling the fingers that had been inside the other man’s head as if he’d touched fire. When the consultant removed himself from Dylan’s presence, a beat passed before the man became a sobbing mess curled up on the ground, speaking incoherently. When Ellie strained to hear what he was saying, she could barely make out Dylan whispering over and over, “ _I don’t know, talk to the Boss! I’m begging you, please! I don’t know anything!_ ” 

Standing upright, flicking off imaginary dust from his coat, their partner looked at them as if nothing had happened, taking a puff from his cigarette. “Well? Shall we go meet this ‘boss’ of his?” 

“What the fuck was that?” Jaws blurted out, all-but shrieking in the tiny alleyway. 

She didn’t want to say it, but she knew; the dread that filled her gut wouldn’t let her even _pretend_ it was something else. 

“Magic,” Ellie whispered, her voice barely louder than Dylan’s sobs and Jane Doe’s rapid breathing. “He’s a fucking mage.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Took forever with this! But I'm happy with how this came out.
> 
> Saeko's a mage!! He's got his own funky things going on, so I won't exactly share what he dips into, but this scene might've given some hint to it.
> 
> Hope y'all enjoy! This was really fun to get back into. This chapter is quite literally shy of 2300 words, so I hope it's easy enough to get through lol.
> 
> (The chapter's title is based on Caitlin Lucia's cover of Katy Perry - Kissed A Girl.)
> 
> [Editted: 01/14/2021.]


	10. alive

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Questions are had, answers are withheld, but now they get to talk about the weirdness they've been experiencing; what will the party find out?

She stared directly at Saeko as he turned to regard her, another one of those expressionless looks on his face. But, this time, Ellie could see the strain of his jaw as the air grew thick between them, and the tightness of the corners of his eyes as he watched her; it was nice knowing that even someone like the consultant still had some tell-tale signs for certain emotions, even if the circumstances of finding them weren’t the best. 

Though she could hear Jaws shifting his feet beside her, Ellie couldn’t force herself to look away from their partner; the solid proof that this man was not entirely human was sending the officer into overdrive, and she felt stuck at a crossroads. _What kind of hunter do I want to be?_ she asked herself for the millionth time in the last year, counting the passing moments with each beat of her racing heart. _What do I want to do with this position I’ve been given?_ This consultant looked like he was barely older than 20, an age _she_ barely graduated from herself; could a kid _really_ be some dastardly evil warlock like the ones from stories she’d heard early on in her UCI career? Were all mages ticking-time-bombs like what she was trained to take down in the event of an emergency? Even with his attitude and really fucked-up way of handling things, did she even have the right to take him out, as she’d been told was her duty as an officer of UCI? 

Even though Saeko's use of magic was _shocking_ , he hadn't used it against the officers. In fact, he’d actually used it to _help_ them, even if it left someone else in an absolute wreck. That was something to celebrate, right? Helping a literal hunter organization seemed... _counterintuitive_ , especially if mages and hunters really _were_ at war with one another, like what Ellie had been taught over the last year. She could still recall some of those conversations in near-perfect detail, their importance drilled into her alongside police tactics and law; it wouldn’t be something she could just easily _forget_. Which, honestly, made her question why she was extending this decision out for so long. 

Sure, she knew what the old guard would’ve done if they were in her shoes: they wouldn’t have hesitated in acting on what they told her duty would’ve demanded from them; if the old guard saw her now, Ellie would’ve been scrubbing the UCI-specified evidence storage for _months_ as punishment for her momentary weakness. 

But, on the other hand, they put her in this position that she couldn’t help _but_ to hesitate: Ellie was the one in charge, now, despite how green she was as both a police officer and a hunter. Still, that made her the most senior officer in the UCI department, therefore the highest-ranking officer there overseeing the operations of the office, and _that_ meant whatever she said goes. _No one_ beyond the commissioner could give her shit for the choices she made, and that was a thought she had been quite comfortable with up until now. 

Besides, this was her first chance at seeing someone _actually_ human during a case (beyond just a victim or a body); this guy just happened to have a bit of the supernatural in him, and he seemed sane _enough_. 

What was the worst that would happen if she let him live, even if it was just until they got through tonight’s case? 

As she contemplated her choices, Saeko continued to stare at her, waiting for her to announce her judgment. Jaws said something off to her side, but she continued to pay him no mind. _Just tonight,_ she reminded herself, the mantra steeling herself as she took a deep breath. _Just tonight, and then we can part ways. I won’t have to kill anyone, and he won’t be another statistic in this stupid war._

Another moment passed before the officer stepped to the side and gestured toward the door, tilting her head to Saeko. “Lead us to the boss then, _consultant_ ,” she sniffed, throwing her hair over her shoulder. “We still have a job to do, and it won’t get done while we waggle tongues out in the cold, now will it?” 

“I’ll stay out here until the ambulance arrives,” Jaws offered immediately as he began pulling out another cigarette, his third one since she had come out here. Ellie could see her friend’s hands were shaking as he fussed with his lighter, the doctor cursing quietly when the tip didn’t light immediately. He took another moment working the flintlock before the cigarette ignited, and he took a long drag from it, not meeting anyone’s gaze. “We can’t leave these two out here alone,” Jaws continued slowly, the smoke rising out from the sides of his lips like wispy clouds. “Y’know?” 

Making a movement towards the good doctor, Ellie began to say something to encourage the other officer, until Saeko beat her to it. Clapping his hand onto Jaws’s shoulder, he gave a fervent nod and replied, “Stay safe, Doctor. We’ll need you soon.” 

Rocking back on her heels, Ellie stared at the two men as they shared a look that she couldn’t understand – it was a similar look from earlier, before she’d announced her presence to them when leaving the club – but the moment ended quickly as they turned away from one another. Saeko did an about-face, while Jaws moved to Jane Doe now that she’d calmed down significantly, albeit the fact she was still mumbling incoherently to herself. 

Even as Ellie followed the consultant back into the nightclub and the music overtook her senses nearly immediately, the woman could still make out Jaws whispering, “Come, now, let me take a look at that mark on your neck. Tell me, how are you feeling?” 

She’d file that entire situation under her ’definitely ask when Jaws is drunk’ notes; but, now, she focused on their more pressing matters. 

The thrumming of the nightlife overtook the officer as she followed the consultant around, allowing the music to reverberate in her bones the deeper into the crowded club she went, even if it felt like she was being dunked into a cold ocean; everything was muffled, and things seemed so much farther away than they really were, but all she could think to do was keep moving forward and maybe something would change. She attempted to stick close to their partner despite the rowdiness of the club, not entirely understanding what he did to Dylan or where he was going now, but Ellie not willing to be left behind once again just as things started to pick up; maybe _now_ they could get some answers, after all that had happened tonight. 

Eyes seemed to follow them as they waded through the throngs of people, as if the multitudes of strangers knew what the trio just did outside, but Ellie couldn’t take the chance to turn and face them; she knew she’d lose sight of the consultant if she did, and all Hell would break loose if she stopped in these shark-infested waters. Maybe what Dylan had said about _being the prey_ wasn’t that far off, and the glares the two were getting from some of the patrons here only fed into that paranoia. 

Eventually, though, the crowd began to thin out and a stairwell closed off with a velvet rope sat before them. Resting at its entrance stood four bouncers guarding the way up, with each of the men a mountain in their own right. Some had tattoos, others had sunglasses on, but they all had one thing in common: a necklace with a charm that looked eerily similar to an ankh. 

The four men watched as Saeko and Ellie sauntered closer, their body language clearly showing they were tracking the two, almost like prey. “Hello, there,” Saeko rumbled in a voice far cheerier than the officer had ever heard come out from his mouth. “We’re here to see your boss! Would you mind letting him know we’re on our way up?” Three of the men turned to the one closest to the rope, silently staring at one another after Saeko’s declaration.

“He isn’t expecting anyone,” the boss-guard hummed, crossing his arms over his chest. “Return to the club, and there won’t be any issues.” 

With half of a mind to listen, Ellie nearly jumped out of her skin when she heard Saeko _laugh_. Facing four giants that had the capabilities to snap her into splinters if they were given the faintest of chances, the ginger suddenly feared that Dylan hadn’t explained even _half_ of the situation here at Memento Mori and they were walking right into a horrible, terrible situation here. She felt like she was drowning with all the possibilities, and it made Ellie scared, despite the suave air the consultant was expressing. 

And here, he was _laughing_. 

The consultant’s smile remained shining despite the sharpness of his words as he said, “Oh, no, you see, we don’t need an appointment. Your Masquerade is in peril if we don’t speak with him now.” He waved a hand slightly, doing a little flourish with his fingers, then added as he took a closer step to the stairs, “And, diablerie is involved, in case any of you are wondering why we’re even bothering with your boss.” 

The bouncers shifted uncomfortably as Saeko spoke, but none of them make a move to stop them. Taking that as a sign to continue their journey, Saeko gave the bouncers a slight head bob and chirped, bounding up the stairs two at a time, “Thanks!” 

Ellie took a moment to wave at the bouncers weakly before following him up, her fingers hooking along the bottom of her dress again as her anxiety threatened to overwhelm her. Questions swarmed her thoughts as she followed the consultant, unsure how to even begin asking Saeko to give her a concise answer with any of it. The fact that he was saying that word from Marthus’s documents made Ellie’s stomach churn. Was that some piece of information Saeko saw when he finger-fucked Dylan’s skull, or was he just pulling something out of thin air to rile up these guards? How much did he know that he still wasn’t sharing? 

As they climbed the winding stairwell, it became noticeably quieter the higher they went. At this moment, Ellie took the chance to lean close to the consultant and ask, “What was that all about?” She wiggled her fingers vaguely to mimic his own movements, then continued, “Did you do something _weird_ to them, too?” 

Humming, Saeko barely turned his head to acknowledge her question, an eyebrow raised as he watched her hands. Realizing what she meant, he gave her a firm shake of his head and chuckled. “No, Officer Carter. There are many other organizations alive in the world beyond hunters and mages, and the Masquerade is the one for those that are of the _blood-sucking variety_.” 

Ellie nodded the longer Saeko talked, forcing herself to swallow past the lump in her throat. “I guess that makes sense,” the officer replied, even though it really didn’t. Either he _had_ been hiding information, or it was something he’d gleaned from Dylan. Either way, it left her feeling lost and severely underprepared. “Then, what about the rest of it? When you were down there with Dylan –” As she spoke, he held open the stairwell’s door for her, which she uttered a quick thanks before entering a seemingly mile-wide corridor. 

Taking the lead once more, Saeko nodded slightly as he interjected quietly, “Yeah, the vampire. What about him?” Her footing slipped slightly at his calm demeanor, and she had to lean against the wall to gather herself. As soon as she stopped, Saeko had the grace to stop and wait for her, even if he did look confused while doing so. “Did I say something wrong?” he questioned, tilting his head quizzically. 

Shaking her head, Ellie responded, “I... didn’t know he was a vampire. _That_ would’ve been great news while interrogating him.” The consultant shrugged half-heartedly, feeling her face heat up as embarrassment suddenly came over her. She certainly wouldn’t have gone as hard as she had with her monologue, if that had been the case; it might have given them an edge to use before Saeko resorted to using _magic_ , but she could only guess as to what other things he was hiding from UCI. 

_Just tonight,_ she thought with a sigh, scrunching the hem of her dress once again in white-knuckled fists. 

“Honestly, I could only assume what he was, until I saw his memories.” It was her turn to stare questioningly. Whether he noticed or not, it didn’t really matter to Ellie, seeing as how he continued on anyway, “I can just hear the cogs turning from here, Officer Carter. To answer the question that seems to be on the tip of your tongue, _yes_ , that’s what I did to him.” He mimicked the finger jab once again, looking over his shoulder to stare at her. “It was painless, so you needn’t worry about that, either.” 

She hadn’t, until he made the grandiose gesture to put to bed any fears he thought she had. _Was_ it painful to Dylan? Was that why he was a sobbing mess when they left Jaws in the alley with him? 

As they approached the end of the corridor, there was a single bouncer at the door beckoning to them. “Guess they already know we’re here,” Ellie muttered, a humorless chuckle bubbling from her chest. 

“With the announcement I just gave them? Oh, no doubt.” When they got within ten feet of the door, Saeko gave a deep bow to the bouncer, similar to the one he gave Ellie at the UCI office when they first met, and asked, “Is he ready to talk now?” 

The bouncer rumbled in affirmation as he opened the door for them. “Don’t keep th’ boss waitin’, now. He wasn’t expectin’ visitors t’night. Be glad he’s in a _gracious_ mood.” 

Fixing his posture, the consultant gave the bouncer a nod and led the two into the room, a more serious air surrounding him now. 

Beyond the threshold was a private theater decked out in gold and white decor, a perfectly white couch in the middle of the otherwise barren space. On it, a cross-looking gentleman stared at Ellie and Saeko as they walked in, a woman almost hanging off of him with a doped-up expression on her face. 

It wasn’t like how Jane Doe was behaving downstairs, but it reminded her of the women she started the night off with. How many people came to Memento Mori for Bliss? Was it going to leak out throughout the rest of the city? Could Ellie even attempt to stop it? What were the long-term effects of taking something this seemingly powerful? 

As they walked closer to the couch, the man held a hand up and grumbled, “That’s close enough. It isn't often I find visitors greeting me towards the end of the night.” Though his tone wasn’t aggressive, Ellie felt more than a little compelled to do as he asked, even taking a step back just to be safe; Saeko, however, remained in place, his hands thrust into his pockets almost casually. The gentleman on the couch turned a little more to look at the two, a sour expression stretching across his face the longer he scrutinized them. 

Eventually, he asked, “What is this about diablerie I’m hearing surrounding you three?” 

Her heart stopped at the mention of _three_ , but the consultant seemed to jump at it instead. He went into the finer details of what the trio had learned over the last twelve hours – everything from Tony’s remains, to the state of his apartment, to the job he’d had. 

At the mention of the tax firm, the gentleman sighed. “The Marthus’s weren’t old kin, by any means of the word, but Jason was a good companion on the long nights we faced together.” Leaning back, the man added, “He made good company, where it counted. I will express my loss to him immediately.” 

He made a gesture to an unseen character behind them – probably the bouncer, Ellie realized – but she knew she had to step in, despite knowing how far out of her depth she was here. “Actually,” Ellie began in a higher-pitched voice than normal, every bone in her body turning to jelly as the boss’s eyes turned from Saeko to her. “W-we haven’t alerted the next of kin yet. It would be v-very much appreciated if you would hold off until our investigation is over?” From the way her voice lilted into another octave, all that was missing from her request was, _Pretty, pretty, please, with a cherry on top?_ It made her want to kick herself at her scared-shitless attitude, but _God_ , Ellie was truly in a league outside her comfort zone here; she couldn’t help it. 

A moment passed as the man stared at Ellie with a look that she couldn’t quite place, before another sigh escaped him. “A police officer, _right_.” He rubbed his temple, his eyes closing as he sighed once more. “I _forgot_ how messy these situations tend to be.” 

She simply stood there awkwardly, waiting for him to acknowledge her once more; this seemed to be more of a ‘he’ll address you when he is ready’ situation rather than ‘you can speak whenever you want to.’ 

Though he eventually did, it wasn’t in the way she expected. 

“Bring them all the information that we have on the Marthus’s,” the gentleman called to the bouncer, snapping his fingers as a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes stretched across his face. “Then, if they need assistance, lend them one of the cars.” 

“As gracious as your offer is,” the consultant interjected, bowing slightly though not as deeply as before, “we do have our own sort of transportation available. We simply request that you allow us to help in whatever way we possibly can, since this _did_ fall into NYPD’s lap first.” 

Ellie’s eyes flitted to Saeko, and it amazed her at how _calm_ he was. _How does he just... so casually speak to people referenced only as ‘the boss’?_ she questioned herself, a frown forming as she watched his face as their conversation continued. _I was a theater kid, but this guy is on another level entirely._

Not to mention the fact this seemed to be a vampire boss, if he was dealing with what seemed to be a vampire-related issue; she didn’t know what else the night would throw at them, let alone how much deeper this whole situation could go. 

The two men talked for quite a while – how long it would take the trio to inform the Marthus’s patriarch, logistics on where to meet afterward, and in what way the NYPD would wrap up the case to any wandering eyes – but Ellie couldn’t keep track of most of it after a while; it was politics, and she was never _good_ at that part of this job. 

Convince a criminal she wasn’t a cop? Sure; she’d done it twice in her first month as an officer, and only got better as time went on. Cry on-cue when the waterworks were an absolutely paramount prop needed for her current situation? Of course; she did that so well in her second semester in college, that she made the other actor feel so bad and had to remind them they were just acting. Cut her nose off with promises, even when her own life was in shambles? She currently owed Frankie in the evidence department a fancy dinner next Friday to his favorite place downtown due to the fact he had to literally rummage around in a body bag to get her a piece of evidence crucial to their last case, even if fulfilling that dinner-date meant she would be eating ramen for the next six weeks. 

Ask Ellie to do the street-level beat, and she’d be all over that – infiltrating a scene, getting something she wanted by batting her eyelashes, using whatever little spending money she had to earn a few favors – but she could tell Saeko _thrived_ in this environment. 

A small part of her hoped they would be able to work again, if only so he could show her how he was _doing_ this. 

Another thought more based in reality told her that Saeko obviously had other reasons to be in the city, and it wasn’t to stick around and join her weird club at the precinct as their odd-child-out. 

_It would’ve been nice, though,_ she thought, following the consultant out as they concluded business with the boss. _Just to have one more person around to help out with the jobs._ Her mantra came back to the forefront of her mind, and she let it sweep her back down the corridor, down the stairs, and outside, meeting Jaws beside her car. 

“Let’s go,” she hummed, taking the driver’s seat once more as the men piled into the car. “We’ll fill you in on the way, if you tell us what happened downstairs.” 

“You’ve got yourself a deal, Ellie,” Jaws replied, patting the back of her headrest carefully as he sprawled out in the backseat. “Wake me up when we get there, though. I might need a recap.” 

The clock blinked 6:39 at them as she took off from the parking lot, the sun just beginning to shine through the hazy morning clouds high above. 

Ellie just hoped it wouldn’t rain again. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Good morning y'all! Thank you for waiting for this, this was a bit of a doozy to write. I wanted to make something that gave Ellie a bit more intrapersonal reflection, especially since she is dealing with a 'what should I do about this very serious situation?' dilemma that she has literally no mentor to help her work through.
> 
> By the way: the boss looks like Alexis Papas; the woman with him looks like Imaan Hammam.
> 
> Anyway, thank you for your support! I hope y'all enjoy this chunky chapter.
> 
> (This chapter's title is based on the acoustic version of Krewella - Alive.)
> 
> [Editted: 01/14/2021.]


	11. towards the sun

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After a club crawl, rambling conversations, and a little more information about the Marthus's, what else could happen in a vampire homicide case?
> 
> Right: time to meet the parents.

During the car ride over, Ellie used half her attention to obey the driving laws while the rest of it was used to contact the tax firm; she knew it was illegal to type on her phone while driving, but this was _important_. Besides, she didn’t _normally_ do this; she was a police officer, after all. Who was going to arrest her in this situation, Saeko? 

Once the number had been punched in and she’d put the call on speaker, Ellie settled her phone on the dashboard and refocused back onto the road. 

The trill sounded twice before someone answered. “Marthus Accounting,” an older man rumbled, stifling a yawn. “The only night-based tax firm in New York City. My name is Jason; how may we be of service?” The light ahead of her turned yellow, so she slowed down enough to stop at the line when it turned red. 

“Ah, yeah, hi!” Ellie replied, her voice lilting into a higher octave as her anxiety started getting the better of her. She watched as the cars passed from the opposite lane, using the moment of reprieve to readjust herself in the seat. “My name is Eloise Carter, and I was wondering if you had an appointment open for today? I haven’t done my taxes this year yet, and was hoping that you had an opening available. I was referred here from a friend, since I usually do my taxes online.” 

Saeko stared at the officer with a dumbfounded expression on his face as she talked, mouthing, ‘ _What are you doing?_ ’ She offered him an exaggerated shrug while Jason replied, “Of course, Miss Carter. We have an opening tonight at 8pm, if you’re available.” 

As the traffic light changed, Ellie stepped on the gas a little too quickly, their bodies lurching forward at the sudden acceleration. Her phone slid forward and hit the glass, lodging itself into the crevice. “Oh, shit, oh no,” she hissed, hitting her palm against the wheel as she uttered a few more curses under her breath. 

Despite the noises he must’ve heard, either from her mouth or the phone, the accountant replied casually, his voice warbling as the phone vibrated against the window, “If that won’t work for you, then we have something next Saturday as our next earliest appointment slot. That one’s closer to midnight, however.” 

“Oh, no, sir, I’m –” She came upon another red light, so as she stopped the car Ellie tried leaning forward to dislodge her phone from its precarious location; but, she was too short, and only started becoming more frustrated the longer she struggled to reach it. “Are – are you _sure_ there’s nothing earlier?” 

“Well,” he began slowly. “Generally, new clients take about an hour to process, so I tend to book new appointments for two hours.” 

As the light turned green once more, Ellie threw herself against the back of her seat and continued to follow the gentle drone of the instructions, huffy that she returned empty-handed. “What about right now?” she asked, literally forcing herself to ignore Saeko as he continued to glare at her. “You’re still open for another hour, right? Would you be able to squeeze me in? It’ll be quick, I promise.” 

Honestly, she understood why Saeko was frustrated with her tactics, but Ellie paid him no mind; she didn’t want to spring up over the phone that this guy’s son was dead, and wasn’t able to think of any other way to let him know gently. It was the least she could do, even if the Marthus’s were technically not-human; they still deserved _dignity_ in how their dead loved ones were represented. 

And, well, she didn’t exactly want to piss off a _vampire_. 

“Yes, well,” the older man began, pulling away from the phone as he became wracked with coughs, “like I said, Miss Carter, a new client’s paperwork could take well over an hour to get you processed, and that includes getting all your paperwork in order and going through your individual tax files to get you the best refund possible. But, even for a quick consultation, I don’t know what the urgency is for you to come in _right now_ –” 

Leaning over to effortlessly snatch Ellie’s phone from beneath the glass, Saeko held the phone awkwardly up to his ear and stared directly at the surprised officer as he said, “Sir, Tony Marthus was found dead in his apartment yesterday. UCI was tasked with finding an end to this unfortunate case, but we weren’t able to let you know sooner since we didn’t know it involved diablerie.” 

“ _What the fuck, Saeko_ ,” she hissed, gripping the steering wheel as she turned to glare at the consultant. He started to ignore _her_ now as he waited for the accountant to reply, but the line had gone eerily silent. 

As the seconds stretched into minutes, the officer began to worry that the man had hung up. She wouldn’t have blamed him; this was shocking news all-around. 

Before she could turn and curse at Saeko once again, the accountant sighed deeply. “I told him to be careful with making his own lineage,” he muttered, sniffling slightly. Some shuffling was overheard from the other end, but Jason eventually continued, “Please, I would like to speak about this in person. How long will it take you to arrive?” 

“We’re right outside, actually,” Ellie interjected as she parked the car in the driveway of a nice-looking townhome. It was in the more expensive neighborhood in the northern part of the city, in a place the officer _knew_ meant that this guy was making more in a month than she would in a year. “May we come up?” 

“Of course.” More shuffling, and then: “I’ll meet you at the front door.” 

The line went dead immediately after. 

“Well,” Saeko replied, tossing the phone back into Ellie’s lap. “That wasn’t so hard.” He stepped outside the vehicle and fixed his coat for a moment before walking toward the townhome’s entrance, where a wiry man stood waiting behind the glass door. He didn’t even look back to see if she was following him. 

Uttering another curse under her breath, the woman sighed as she looked down at the clubwear she still had on. She knew Saeko was right; she just didn’t want to _admit_ it. 

Taking the car keys out of the ignition and kicking on the emergency brake, Ellie fiddled with her dress for a moment before leaning into the backseat and grabbing her uniform jacket, working around the still-sleeping Jaws as he snored in the backseat. She managed to put his coat over his shoulders as a make-shift blanket before following the consultant into the house soon after; the officer knew she would look extremely out of place, but at this point, it’d be weirder _not_ to cover up. 

Given the circumstances, and all that. 

Stepping into the house, Ellie noticed it looked fairly... _normal_ : it had more furniture and knick-knacks than a thrift store, with books piled onto shelves that lined three of the main walls in the room the accountant herded the two into. She didn’t see anything weird like what Tony had had at his apartment – like the curtain situation, or an empty apartment beyond his paperwork – and it made her question whether or not they had the right address. 

It wasn’t until Jason started talking that the doubt melted from her. 

“He wasn’t my first fledgling, but I felt closest to him than many of my other kin.” The man shrugged slightly, slumping down into a plush chair beside a beautifully ornate desk. “He worked here with me to get his footing after he was unable to settle down elsewhere, but he always worked hard.” With a flourish of his hand, he added, “James always told me how he wanted to have a fledgling of his own, so I offered him advice: choose carefully, because they will be _your_ responsibility after they're turned.” 

Ellie couldn’t help but ask, “James, sir?” 

His eyes flicked up to hers, and something flashed in his dark eyes that made her stomach churn. “It was easier to establish I had a biological son than explaining why I was taking on an apprentice for what has been established as a _family-run business_.” He gave a half shrug, adding, “We always called one another by our real names, in the moments that it counted.” 

“So, neither of you are a Marthus?” the officer questioned, leaning against a wall slightly. 

Shaking his head with a short laugh, Jason said, “Oh, no, I’ve always been called Marthus – Jason Marthus the Fourth, to be exact.” He sat a little straighter in his chair, his eyes flittering over the paperwork spread out carefully over the desk. It looked like wanted to say something, his mouth twisting as if he tasted something sour, but instead, he sighed once more and remained silent. 

“We know this is a difficult time for you,” Saeko said. “But we need to know more. Anything you can tell us will help.” Jason’s eyes flicked over to the consultant, then back down to the floor. 

“A few decades ago, I found James Morrison as a scared young man that had no other prospects at life; I gave him that chance to be something _more_. There are many reasons and ways a vampire can come into existence, but I gave James the choice to turn it down.” 

“And the moment he was able to, he turned and tried starting his own legacy?” Saeko offered. Ellie turned to the consultant, her brow furrowing; did he know something she didn’t? 

Jason scoffed, retorting sharply, “It’s almost as if you believe me to be bitter over that choice, officers.” He shook his head, then continued, his voice a little gentler, “He was smart when it counted, but the boy always had a soft spot for helping people, even those with the worst intentions. I have no ill-will for someone with that predisposition. 

“The young one he took in – Tyler Holt – was hardly old enough to get a pack of cigarettes, let alone with the mental capacities to understand what accepting the Masquerade meant. James was a little older than Tyler when he was turned, but I suppose he wanted to give the boy a shot at a new life as well.” 

Ellie crossed her arms over her chest, lost in thought. _Could Tyler have been the one to bleed Tony – or rather, James? – dry?_ Rather than going down that line of thinking, the ginger asked instead, “Would you know where Tyler would be right now?” The room fell into silence as Jason stared at her with another look that made her squirm in her spot. “Just to, y’know, make sure he’s safe,” she added lamely, her eyes unable to meet Jason’s.

“So, Tyler took James’s life,” he said, rather than asked. 

The heat she felt from Saeko’s direction made Ellie even more uncomfortable.

It took everything she had to force herself to meet his gaze as she replied, struggling to keep her voice even as she spoke, “NYPD was called to do a welfare check on Tony –” With a firm shake of her head, she corrected, “– _James_. Instead of finding him, our officers found him drained of all blood, with hardly anything in his apartment and no signs of forced entry.” Shrugging, Ellie continued, “If it wasn’t Tyler, who else would be allowed into your son's apartment?” 

“Is there a safe place you can go to until we can confirm whether or not Tyler was the murderer?” Saeko asked, not giving Jason the chance to reply to Ellie. 

Now, she definitely knew something was up; he almost sounded _impatient_. 

Shaking his head dumbfoundedly, Jason replied, “No, officers. I would generally leave to go to a cabin in the Catskills, but with morning already here...” He gestured to the window, and the hazy glow that came from behind the drawn curtain. “I don’t have many options.” 

“I can help with that,” Saeko replied, clapping his hands. “Which room are you most comfortable in, sir?” 

“Uh,” the accountant started, his face twisting in confusion. “This is where I tend to do most of my work, but the study upstairs is also where I spend my days.” Saeko nodded as he listened, humming as Jason finished. 

“Would you be okay spending a full day in your upstairs study?” 

The way he said it almost sounded like a threat than a protective gesture, but Ellie wanted to see how far this would go; she wanted to know what he had planned. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So! Another chapter posted, but Ellie just as more questions.
> 
> Vampires are really weird to her right now, but at least she's not sticking her neck out for one. She'll let Saeko deal with the talking, since he seems to know what he's talking about anyway lol.
> 
> Hope y'all enjoy!
> 
> (This chapter's title is based on Rihanna - Toward The Sun.)
> 
> [Editted: 01/14/2021.]


	12. bury me alive

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A short-lived insanity comes to an end behind closed doors, but our officer doesn't really know what the best course of action would've been.

The entire ‘appointment’ took about thirty minutes, but the moment they escorted Jason to his upstairs study, Saeko told her it was time to leave. The officer tried to argue about how unsafe sticking him into a _singular room_ was, but the mage always seemed to have a rebuttal on hand to talk her down. 

Part of her wanted to scream in his smug face how none of this made sense, but she chose to leave and scream in her car instead; it was the _less insane_ idea she managed to cook up, at any rate, and would sort of make her feel better in the end. Unfortunately, she forgot Jaws asleep in the back, and the man bolted upright immediately, screaming himself. 

“What the Hell is going on?!” Jaws shrieked, his glasses flying askew as he sat up. 

Shouting back at him, Ellie yelled, “I am _so sorry!!_ I forgot you were in here!” 

Clutching his chest as they stopped their shouting match, the good doctor took a few moments to calm himself down before asking, “What happened in there? Did Saeko say something to you again?” 

Shaking her head slightly, she replied, “No, it’s just... _so_ much to deal with, Jaws. I can’t even begin to explain it to you right now.” She heard the front door to the Marthus’s open and close, and it brought her attention back to the moment. “Besides, we have company.” He squinted through the morning haze as they watched the consultant shuffled out the front door, looking a little worse for wear. He settled into the passenger seat of the car, rolling his arms behind his head as he curled against the seat. She caught the slight view of tattoos under his sleeves, but wasn’t close enough to register what the black ink meant. 

“Have fun in there without me?” the officer asked bitterly, throwing the car into reverse and backing out of the driveway quickly. 

Saeko sighed, shifting in the seat slightly as he mumbled back, “It was _two_ minutes. I think you could handle yourself just fine out here.” 

She felt Jaws’s gaze on her, but she didn’t give him the answers he wanted, instead too focused on the reason for her screaming fit to try and offer her friend a proper explanation. With a frustrated sigh, Ellie asked, “ _Please_ tell me you at least got Tyler’s address without doing –” She hit her fingers against her forehead while looking at him in her peripherals, but wasn’t able to see if he was watching or not. “– _magic_ on an already grieving father.” 

Saeko cracked an eye open at that comment, but closed it immediately after, giving her a shrug. “It’s in the Bronx, somewhere on Adrian Street. Big building, can’t miss it; hardly bigger than a shoebox, from what the vampire said.” 

Jaws leaned forward and put his hand on her shoulder, and this time she turned to look at him, couldn’t manage to find the right words to say to him; what _could_ she say to that? ‘Oh no, he’s not _that_ bad?’ So, she let it drop, and asked instead, “Should we call some other officers as back up for when we get there?” 

He gave her another shrug, mumbled something too low for her to hear, and then flipped over to face the seat. 

Whatever happened in the house obviously tired him out, but Ellie didn’t know enough about mages – or Saeko, really – to know if it was something he did or if the night was just getting to him. Personally, she was starting to feel it herself. 

So, she took her time and went to Starbucks on the way over. 

She got herself two drinks (a cold brew and an Americano, both with cream) and Jaws a chai tea and a biscuit. She started drinking the cold brew on the way over to the apartment building Tyler supposedly lived at, the two friends quietly slurping on their drinks as time slowly ticked by. By this time, the sun was starting to rise over the city, making all the windows glitter like gold in the early morning light. It would’ve been pretty if she didn’t know that there was a rampant, rabid vampire out and about in New York City drinking other vampires’ blood. _What does that even **do** to a vampire?_ Ellie thought, too confused by the entire idea to properly form an idea about it. Honestly, she still didn’t really know what ‘diablerie’ was, but what little she remembered from the boss at Memento Mori, it had some ritualistic (and almost taboo?) history in the vampire community – the “Masquerade,” as Saeko said – and whenever it happened, it had to be dealt with in an equally brutal way. Maybe that was what they were dealing with now? 

Still sitting in her clubbing outfit from the night before, Ellie knew she’d have to change before entering the building to help them in any way possible; she had _no_ idea what she was walking into, and didn’t want to walk in underprepared for a fight against a brutal vampire baby. 

About halfway through her cold brew, the officer could see the building the consultant mentioned earlier. Out in front, all across the lawn, sat about a dozen black vehicles with window tints that would make any other officer furious – but, seeing about two dozen people just barely squished under the building’s awning and away from the sunshine, Ellie knew it was the other vampires out there waiting. 

Parking a little-ways off from the building, the officer walked around to the backseat of her car and pulled out the uniform she’d shed the night before, pulling out a Kevlar vest from under her passenger seat and settling it on the trunk. She shrugged her uniform coat off, put the vest on, and put the jacket back on, making sure her service weapon was still in her purse. (She _probably_ didn’t need it, but didn’t want to take any chances.) While she was out getting ready, she could hear one of her doors open and close, and then the slow exhale of someone smoking a cigarette. "You good?" she called out, shuffling around in her awkward outfit as best as she could to look less like a kid playing dress-up and more of the police officer she was supposed to be. 

“Yeah, El,” came the quiet response. “I just don’t think I can do this one.”

Coming around to face her old friend, Ellie put a hand on one of his shoulders and offered him the most sincere smile she could. “You don’t have to go in, Jaws. I’ll handle this one today. You’ve done enough.” He returned her smile, albeit a sadder one than she gave him, and he took another long drag off the cigarette. He didn’t even have to say thank you; she knew him well enough by now, and could tell today was really dragging on the good doctor. She’d see to it he had the _best_ meal after this.

As he returned to the back seat, Ellie went to the front seat and attempted to nudge the sleeping consultant awake. He grumbled something in his sleep and turned over, attempting to hide his face from her as a frustrated look washed over his face. Poking him again, this time more harshly, she said, “We’re here, Saeko. Get out if you want to see this through.” 

The man ran a hand across his face as he sighed, pulling himself up and running a hand through his dark hair. “Fine,” he rumbled, blinking sleepily, his owlish eyes looking back between the good doctor and the officer. “Lead the way, ma’am.” 

And so, she did; as the two approached the building, the crowd outside seemed to part like the Red Sea to allow them through. Even more people – _no, vampires_ – sat in the lobby of the apartment building, taking up every available piece of standing room. A somber air drenched the room in a quiet tension, but Ellie broke it by asking, “What’s the plan, then?” 

A few vampires turned to face her, but many looked away; the one that didn’t, she kept her focus on as he replied, his thick Bronx accent only adding to the tension in the air, “We’re gonna get’n th’ place, and yous’ll stay out here, outta our way.” 

Ellie raised an eyebrow and opened her mouth to speak, but as she did so, the consultant put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed. “We’ll cover you,” he said, staring at the vampire. 

With a shrug, the Bronxian turned to the group, hissed something quietly, and made his way to the door at the end of the corridor. The officer watched as they carefully opened the door and swarmed through the doorway – almost like fire ants on prey – and a vicious fight ensued behind the walls, the screams shaking the foundation of the building. It terrified her to no end, and Ellie was immensely glad they didn’t ask her to join in on the fight; she didn’t see it ending well for her, if that had been the case. 

She caught glimpses of vampires flying and furniture shattering on contact, but with the dozen or more vampires against the one, the terrifying battle ended just as quickly as it had begun. 

The Bronxian dragged the body through the hall, blood and debris following them as the trail grew longer; the Red Sea parted once more as the Bronxian made his way outside, chucking the body into the nearest black van and slamming the door shut. 

He walked around to the passenger door, jumped inside, and his van took off; as that happened, the other vampires started to follow suit, some slower than others. The two stood in the middle of this chaos, the thick stench of blood leaking from the apartment down the hall as some vampires stopped to stare at them. 

“Guess I’ll call this in,” Ellie sighed dejectedly, pulling out her phone from her jacket pocket. “Might as well get a clean-up crew in here to handle the rest of the building, too. Just in case.” 

The weird look from before – that same expression he shared with Jaws – stretched across his face, but he didn’t say anything as she started calling around the precincts to see which one would be willing to do this favor for her. How would she even explain this, anyway? ‘Twilight Gone Wrong’ sounds like an off-shoot of a Scary Movie rip-off, and didn’t exactly share the... _severity_ of the situation at hand. 

_At least no one else got hurt,_ she told herself as she walked outside, the iron in her nose reminding her of the morning’s nightmare. _I just hope this was all worth it._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope y'all enjoy. ♡
> 
> (Chapter name based on Breaking Benjamin - Bury Me Alive.)
> 
> [Editted 01/14/2021.]


	13. blurry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The job's over, but nothing is ever as it seems.

Returning to the precinct that afternoon was a somber moment for Ellie; she stuck around long enough for the clean-up crew to show up and offer any assistance that she could, just as some of the vampire’s own crew came along to do their own “clean-up” of the scene. As far as she knew, Saeko went to sleep in the car while she oversaw the two crews interacting. Jaws took off in the first ambulance he could, working with the coroners office to cover up any details the vampires may have missed when taking the body away. 

Both humans and vampires worked side-by-side professionally, but she was the only human who knew what had gone on here. Though they didn’t act like anything was off – vampire _or_ human – but it had the hunter on an edge she hadn’t been on in a long while. 

It wasn’t even alarming; it was just _depressing_. 

When she finally drove the two of them back to the precinct and wandered down into the UCI office, Jaws’s coat was there but he was nowhere to be seen. _Must be in the morgue,_ she thought, plopping down in one of the cubicles. _He tends to hide after days like this._

Last night had been one of the more difficult cases the duo had been a part of since – well, since the old guard died. The amount of blood she saw pouring out of the vampire was enough to send her into a headspace she hadn’t been in since she was brought onto the force, and it was forcing her to _think_. 

She didn’t like to think, not about _this_. 

During Ellie’s time at the Pratt Institute, she’d been in her fair share of accidents – mostly theater-related, other times just campus life clumsiness – but nothing had ever prepared for life as a police officer. She couldn’t even stomach being a _doctor_ , so why did she allow herself to get roped into this entire thing? 

Even as she asked herself that, she knew why: it was her _only_ choice after what had happened to her. 

The old guard used to recruit their people in similar ways that they did for her: something supernatural does something to a person that lived in the state of New York, that person changes forever, and UCI would be there to scoop them up and invite them into their ranks to “do something about it.” 

They also forgot to mention that the only way to “retire” was to be put six feet into the ground. 

Obviously, many of those recruits didn’t make it, despite many of them being police officers, military personnel, and other ( _better_ ) people that knew how to fight; yet, somehow, Ellie _did_. Jaws, surely, had his own story to share – something about going to a bonfire with a new girlfriend of his, but it turned out she was a druid sacrificing him to an old god, and somehow, he escaped the ordeal with only a scar on his chest – but he wasn’t on the _force_. He was similar to Saeko in the way his job functioned, but even if he wasn’t as hands-on as she was, it was great having her old college friend here for the ride. 

John, on the other hand, was someone that she 100% believed was actually John Constantine. He never brought up how he had obtained his wide array of knowledge, and Ellie never had the courage to ask; some things were just better left unsaid. 

Even if she hadn’t died yet, she knew she wasn’t going to keep being this lucky forever. No one that touched UCI did, and it was just a fact she had to deal with. 

Slumping in her chair further, still in her clubbing dress (sans-Kevlar vest; she put it back under the seat before walking into the precinct), Ellie didn’t want to think about the other man still waiting around in the room. 

“Aren’t you going to start your report?” Groaning, Ellie turned to face him as he stood watching her. 

Shaking her head as she fixed her posture, the hunter replied, “No. We’ll leave it as a homicide. Let the media deal with it as they tend to do, and it will get quiet eventually. The only real issue we might have are cult followings online that spring up after cases like this.” 

He tilted his head slightly as she spoke, his eyes narrowing. “But... why?” 

She shrugged. “The higher-ups don’t know everything we do, and we haven’t ever kept secure records.” _Even for hunters down the line,_ the officer thought bitterly. But, she continued on, “Some of the people that work with us have an idea that we work with supernatural things, but think we’re mostly dealing with stray dogs, bullshit, and heroin addicts.” Ellie shrugged again, sighing. “All goose chases on the tax payer’s dime.” 

“And you’re okay with that?” he pressed, crossing his arms over his chest as he spoke. This time, she could see more of the tattoos on his arms – some of them she could tell were absolutely intricate pictures of creatures, others were weird symbols she could only guess were in another language entirely – but she forced herself to tear her gaze from them. 

Bitterly, she shot back, “Are you okay with being a mage?” The expression on his face didn’t change, but his body language certainly indicated he was put off by her comment. She wasn’t going to apologize though; he chose this life just as she did, if he was still _here_. “Look, the job’s done. Go do whatever it is you need to. The night’s over, so we don’t need to keep this relationship any longer.” 

He still remained there, his expression finally twisting as he opened his mouth to speak, but was cut short as someone else rapped on the door. 

Standing up with a groan, Ellie peaked out over the tops of the cubicles to see a man in a black suit standing at the threshold, a smile on his face. “Hello?” she offered. “May I help you?” 

“You both can, actually.” He took a step inside, flicked a badge Ellie could barely read, and he continued, “My name is Agent Wilkins. I’ve been assigned to your group as a liaison for Valkyrie. Can we have a chat?” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shortest chapter I've written for this, but it's also the end of this 'pilot episode.'
> 
> Agent Wilkins was immediately loved by our group, and he had a SHIELD mood that we loved playing with.
> 
> Thank you for reading so far; the next episode will start soon. Hope y'all enjoy.
> 
> (Chapter title based on Puddle of Mudd - Blurry.)


	14. Liquid Nights & Disco Lights

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What's an officer tasked with dealing with the supernatural to do during a week without work?
> 
> Lots of thinking, apparently.

Much to Ellie’s chagrin, Saeko did not, in fact, leave. 

Hell, he stuck around for a _week_ after Agent Wilkins’s appearance, and the consultant wouldn’t stop pestering her about proper handling of the paperwork. Honestly, it got to the point Ellie wanted to scream at him, “ _You do it, then!_ ” but that would both be unprofessional and kind of illegal to let a non-officer write out a report, even if UCI’s records weren’t the best kept anyway... 

He had a point, but she didn’t _like_ it. She’d rather never drink coffee again than admit it. 

So, as their case ended, she spent the next week more at the office than at her apartment, relying on their lovely Dolores to keep her caffeinated during the long nights; sometimes, Jaws would be there with her favorite take-out and his favorite bottle of booze, other times it would be Saeko sitting quietly at one of the other cubicles writing in a small notebook he carried everywhere, but most of the time it was just the coffee pot and her. John was still upstate at this point, but they hadn’t heard from him in ages, so Ellie wasn’t sure if he lost his phone (again), was having a spotty connection, or had simply died. 

God, she didn’t want to write out the paperwork for that last possibility. She’d be drowning for _weeks_ drawing up tape this way and that so no one would be able to peer into UCI’s operations. Even still, with the silence, Ellie didn’t fear for John’s safety; it was more of wondering _when_ the other officer would return to the fold. It was nice, though, having a week without weird shit going on; it was the breather the hunter needed, if only so she could actually figure out what she was feeling. 

She was working with _an actual mage._ He had been in her office, and basically memorized her work schedule and the names of nearly every person she interacted with daily. This consultant _knew her coffee order_ after the second time she ordered it in front of him, and even offered to get it for her one late night they were both pouring over some old UCI files. She didn’t even know why she was still showing him these things; they were _confidential_. Hell, he constantly drove around with her in her _car!_ Did she need to report that? Was begin a mage contagious? What did it mean that he didn’t blow up in her face? Was he literally a bomb, or was that something that was used as propaganda from the old guard to make her and the other UCI officers alright with murdering something deemed as an “other”? 

There were more questions than Ellie cared for, and unfortunately knew that she wouldn’t be able to scream into the void and get an answer for them, so she tried a more direct approach: stalking the consultant throughout the corridors to catch glimpses of him and learn his ways, so she could gauge just how dangerous he was, if he even was in the first place. He had only been helpful every step of the way, even if he had been emotionless and hiding nearly every bit of information he had; there were worse partnerships to have, after all. 

Though it hadn’t been more than a few days since she started her reconnaissance, Ellie knew one thing about the consultant: he was not very stealthy, given the way he seemed to walk just slow enough for her to follow, but never turning around to notice her. It was honestly amazing he hadn’t noticed her yet? Given the fact she used to do this for a living, Ellie was glad she hadn’t lost some of her edge. 

But, nevertheless, she had a decision to make: _should_ she really put a bullet in his head, or was he safe enough to allow to roam around New York City on his own? The recon so far hadn’t dredged up any proof of the former option, so the hunter was starting to believe that the idea from the old guard that mages were _dangerous_ and should be killed on sight was more of a failed propaganda task than anything set in reality. Even despite his own hangups, what with his withholding of information and all ofthat, Ellie couldn’t find anything _dangerous_ about his actions, period. Just because he was a mage didn’t automatically make him a terrible person. 

After all, he was still _human_. That counted for something, right? 

On the eighth day after the diablerie case ended, Ellie and Saeko were waiting in the UCI office for their take-out to arrive (her treat, seeing as how she felt like he wasn’t a threat anymore) when Derrik came downstairs, looking worse for wear. 

“You alright?” she called out when she saw him standing at the threshold, his expression showing clear worry. Sighing, the officer came towards them and handed Ellie a thick packet. Tentatively, she grabbed it and started looking through it, handing Saeko the pages as she finished them. As she read, Derrik remained silent, which was an even _more_ worrying thing that the woman wasn’t used to. 

“Do you want to sit?” she offered, gesturing to the free cubicle. “It might be a while to read through, if you’re going to stick around. I even have Chinese on its way, if you’re interested.” 

He stared at her with a deadpanned look before saying, “Chinese gives me heartburn.” 

Nodding slowly, the officer sighed, returning her eyes to the papers. _It was worth a shot,_ she told herself. _Maybe he’ll get comfortable with us someday._ Most of the papers were filled with eye witness testimonies from concerned citizens, police officers, and EMTs: there were dozens of groups of people wandering all over the city, all of them found in an almost drugged-like state of being; twenty-four of them had been rounded up in the last day alone by police officers, with nine of them had been brought to hospitals all across the city after being in accidents caused by their fugue states. Three remained in this very building, for a variety of reasons. 

One of the women was a soccer mom from Missouri who went missing a few weeks ago, only to turn up here and a few hundred dollars lighter; she was still a little dazed, but had no recollection as to why she literally started walking to New York City. (Ellie looked up the distance on her phone, and saw that if the mom had _really_ walked from St. Louis to the Big Apple, she’d been walking for nearly 318 hours – 13 days – straight, and it would account for why no one could find her in her residential area.) 

The next woman was a businesswoman that lived in Florida but was in New York City for a business trip; from her account, she went to a bar a few nights ago in New Jersey, and then found herself here, wearing the same clubbing outfit from that night and with blisters on her feet from walking the distance in heels. (The ginger could empathize; even the _comfiest_ heels would lash back out on the wearer if they were worn for too long. Hopefully, it wouldn’t leave any lasting damage to her feet.) 

The last one – a local construction man – had been a nervous wreck the entire morning, pacing the interrogation room as he kept begging for them to let him call his boss. He had been the most tight-lipped out of the three picked up, and Derrik wanted to see if John could’ve got him talking. (That was before Ellie informed him of John’s continued absence, which made him curse like a sailor in front of her for the first time ever.) 

“Alright then, Saeko,” Derrik muttered, ignoring the reeling Ellie. “You’re up to see to it we get the info we need out of this one.” 

Nodding slowly, the consultant simply replied, “Alright, sir.” The affirmation seemed to placate the officer, as he turned and left immediately after, leaving them with the rest of the packet to go over. 

Watching him go, she wondered if Derrik was doing alright; he looked more haggard every time she saw him, and it was starting to worry her. Maybe he’d be up for a donut run with her later, if they weren’t caught up in this case? 

“Officer Carter,” came the low drawl from the other side of the room, pulling her out of her thoughts. “Where do you want to start with this?” 

“Well,” she started, scratching the back of her head frustratedly. “I would love to talk with the people upstairs, but I’m kind of _hungry_.” She leaned her head against her chair, humming as she continued, “But I’m not sure when they were last fed... ugh, I should’ve asked Derrik. The cafeteria food isn’t the greatest upstairs, though they do try their best.” She sat up as she said the last sentence, nodding her head quickly, as if reassuring Saeko. “But, just – ugh. _Look_.” 

She got up and started pacing, gesturing wildly with one hand as the other held the rest of the packet, her eyes still roving across the pages while she ranted, as if something would pop out at her with divine intervention to give her some clue as to what was going on. “This lady’s been gone for _three weeks_. It’s been raining in the Midwest, in case you haven’t noticed! The doctors say she’s fine, no pneumonia creeping around the corner for her, but I can’t _believe_ that she’s just... just okay! She doesn’t have the issues that the second woman has with her feet, so she couldn’t have _walked_ from St. Louis, but how can we know that for sure? Were they all part of some bad drug drop that just happened to affect people in their forties? That last guy seemed far too wiry to _not_ be, but no one saw them carrying any pills or have any marks to indicate they were pushing...” 

Taking a deep breath and stopping mid-rant, the hunter turned to the mage and asked, her voice deadpanned, “Can you read their minds? Without, y’know.” She gestured gently to her forehead with her fingers, poking her head a few times before dropping her hand. 

He tilted his head slowly, his eyes narrowing as he considered her question. Ellie didn’t know if she was being crazy or if that was something mages could do – or if she was being entirely rude, and he’d done something else entirely different to Dylan at Memento Mori – but he gave her a curt nod nonetheless. “It would be better to just _ask_ them, though,” he offered instead. 

Ellie stared at him, her chest bubbling with an emotion she couldn’t quite place and she shot back, “If they don’t remember, what else are we going to do? Send them to a hypnotist?” 

With a shrug, the consultant replied, “If they can’t remember, what will I gain by seeing their hazy memories? I’ll be seeing exactly what they do. It won’t be like reading a book – something that has clear, concise information from point A to B without deviation – but more like watching clouds move, except that the clouds are their emotions and can be influenced through outside interference.” 

“Like an interrogation,” the officer said. He gave her another curt nod. With a sigh, she asked, “Okay, well, Saeko. Where shall we start this?” 

Standing up slowly, carefully gathering all the paperwork together, he replied, “Follow my lead.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wrote this up pretty quick! I really enjoyed this next series of "episodes," and I hope I can do them justice. It was what actually molded the campaign into what it became, and I'm forever grateful for what it ended as.
> 
> Hope y'all enjoy!
> 
> (The song title was what the DM referenced as the story's "theme song," a song by Miracle of Sound called 'Liquid Nights & Disco Lights.' I really love the song lol.)
> 
> [Editted: 01/14/2021.]


	15. Way Down We Go

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ellie lets a mom cry, and she bosses around the mage without a second thought.

Ellie looked over at her phone as it sat on the table, the little notification warning blipping up on the screen momentarily before drifting back to black. They'd been in here for twenty minutes, but nothing much had come out of the conversation – mostly deflections by the woman and how she just wanted to get home. 

“Please,” Saeko said soothingly from his spot in the corner. “Will you tell our lead UCI detective what you remember?” 

Offhandedly, she wanted to strangle him for calling her a _detective_ , but she’d let it slide for now. They had more pressing matters to deal with. 

“I already spoke to three separate officers, and some weird doctor,” the mother replied between her wails of frustration. “I just want to get _home_.” 

Ellie leaned further onto the table, lacing her fingers together as she stared at the soccer mom before her, an absolute wreck and scared stupid. “And we can do that for you,” the officer murmured. “We just need you to repeat the same story you gave the other officers, because we think we have a lead.” 

She could hear Saeko shifting behind her, but she didn’t turn to face him. They might not’ve had a lead _yet_ , but anything this woman would (and could) give them would put them that much closer to figuring out if this was a _fluke_ , an active cult situation, or if there was something else more supernatural going on. 

The woman stared at her for a long, tense moment, her sobs eventually turning into sniffles as she worked over Ellie’s words. “You promise?” she whispered, working the edge of her dirty shirt worriedly. The corners of her eyes showed the exhaustion the mother felt, and it almost broke the officer’s heart to look at her. 

Nodding gently, Ellie replied, “I promise. We can get you a shower in the barracks, get you some clean clothes, and I have some food coming, too, if you’re not picky about Chinese?” As the officer spoke, the woman just burst into tears again, the relief sweeping over her face as clear as the sun breaking out from behind a terrifying storm cloud. 

“Thank you,” she cried, moving her shaking hands forward and grasping Ellie’s own. “ _Thank you._ ” 

“Just help us help you,” Ellie murmured, running her thumbs over the woman’s hands. As she did so, she could see streaks appearing from where their hands touched, the grime from the last three weeks slowly coming off of this woman’s skin. “We promise, this will be over soon.” 

The woman’s eyes darted from Saeko to Ellie a few times before resting on the officer’s face, her lip quivering as she took in shaky breaths to settle herself. “It started with one of my girlfriends off Facebook, Debbie Myers,” she began, her voice low as more tears threatened to spill over. “I met her a few years ago on Farmville and we somehow managed to keep in touch, so I always trusted her opinion on things. When she told me that there was some new little band in town at some nearby bar, she told me I _had_ to go to it.” 

"Would you be able to provide her address and phone number to us so we can contact her, just to make sure she’s okay as well?” the officer asked, trying to keep her voice level despite the dread settling into her stomach. 

Nodding slowly, the soccer mom replied, “It’s on my phone, but it died. I don’t have a charger for it, either. At least I don’t think so?” 

“Don’t worry, we’ll find you one,” Ellie said as she finally turned to look at the consultant. His face was unreadable, but not unkind; at least that was something she had going for her. “Can you ask the evidence locker for her items, and maybe have them help you find a charger for her phone?” As he pushed off from the wall and started towards the door, she added quickly, “If they give you trouble, let them know I asked for it. Just have them text me later if they need anything, okay?” 

Confusion twisted on Saeko’s face, but it evened out almost as quickly as he turned back toward the woman. “Of course. And the name?” 

Ellie wanted to groan, but the soccer mom answered immediately, “Nora Sanders. I-I have a red purse, with a little blue Android phone? It has a golden charm on it.” She leaned into the officer, her voice lowering as she added, “It has all my babies' initials on it.” 

Humming in agreement, the hunter kept her eyes on Saeko until he left the two women alone. She didn’t know why, but she felt like he was off today. 

But, she’d deal with that later. 

Turning back to face the woman, Ellie gave her hands a gentle squeeze. “Nora,” she began slowly. “Your friend, Debbie, right?” Nora nodded, rubbing her nose with her free hand. Ellie handed her a handkerchief, smiling appreciatively as the woman quietly whispered ‘thank you.’ “Is she one to usually hang around bars, or clubs, or concert halls, maybe?” 

Nora sat back into her chair and pulled herself from Ellie’s grasp, crossing her arms over her chest almost like a protective barrier between herself and the officer. Her face twisted into several different emotions as she mulled over Ellie’s question – confusion, to anger, to sadness – before finally settling on a frown. “She seemed to hop from one band to the other, well before I ever knew her. Her kids are grown, so she doesn’t have to worry about them seeing her _in a state_ when she would come back home from one of her late nights out, but –” She leaned in and dropped her voice down low, almost conspiratorially, and the officer couldn’t help but lean in to hear better. “She was following this one new band – _really_ new, like, barely a few months old when they hit it big in the Midwest. It was some band called ‘Ear’ _-something._ ” She shook her head hard, a frustrated sigh escaping her. 

Tilting her head, the officer worked over the soccer mom’s words. “You don’t remember what it was called?” she asked. Nora shook her head once more, huffing as she slumped against the table. 

“I really only went to see them because Debbie was _begging_ me to go. Pestering me nearly every day, right up until their concert, actually. She was even contacting my kids to ask me to go! So, to get her off my back, I just... went.” She offered a pitiful shrug, not meeting Ellie’s eyes now. “I enjoyed the show, but something was off.” 

“How so?” 

Still unable to meet her eyes, Nora whispered, retreating further into herself, “I only had _one beer_ , but it felt like my entire life was being played back to me like a movie. I... I’m afraid I got _drugged_ or something, because the next thing I remember – and, _actually_ remember, not like a hazy dream-like ‘remember’ – I was being pulled back onto the sidewalk to avoid getting run over by oncoming traffic.” 

The way the woman expressed her story let the officer know this woman wasn’t used to this – _any_ of this – and had no real grounding to keep herself above water with. 

So, with a sad smile, Ellie said, “I’m not going to lie, that happens even when _I’m_ walking down the street. New Yorkers are pretty mean when it comes to traffic. You kind of have to be an Olympic sprinter, or take your chances as Frogger.” The mother choked on a sob as she laughed, tears pouring from her eyes. Getting up and running a hand across her back, Ellie allowed Nora to lean into her and cry, humming gently as she did so. 

Nora continued to sob for what felt like an hour, unintelligible words spilling out of her mouth just as freely as her tears did. When it was all said and done, Ellie leaned down to grab her phone and unlocked it, offering it to the woman. “If you can remember your family’s number, do you want to call them? I can step out and give you a moment alone.” 

The tears started anew as the mother shakily took the phone, her face contorted with pain and fear. She was able to get out another quiet ‘thank you,’ but the hunter shook her head and replied, “No, ma’am. I’m just trying to make sure you can make sure your family knows you’re alright. We’ll work on getting you home soon.” 

With that, she stood up and left the interrogation room, hearing the mother’s wails even outside the door as she called her family. 

These types of cases always made Ellie feel _so_ sad, even if she managed to do some good with it; too many people were often hurt, and there was only so much that she could prevent or assist with until something even more difficult came by to sweep her efforts away. 

She just hoped Saeko was having better luck with the guys in the evidence locker. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not quite a heavy chapter, but definitely one I felt as a player when it happened. Someone that went to the Ear-something concert has a lot to answer for, and Ellie won't sit idly by as they continue to rip families apart. Saeko had his own adventures, but Ellie didn't get to see them so we'll see the aftermath later on.
> 
> Hope y'all enjoy!
> 
> (Chapter name is based on Kaleo - Way Down We Go.)


	16. Cake by the Ocean

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Food, food, food is on her mind; will others see what she needs?

Hanging outside the interrogation room, Ellie was starting to worry; it’d been about twenty minutes since the mage left, and she wasn’t sure what was going on with the other two people they still needed to question. Nora was still crying in the room, her wails evident even through the thick door, and the officer was wracking her brain to try and figure out who she could trust to keep an eye on her. 

When someone goes through something like this – supernatural or simply mundane – they come back _different_. Though she wasn’t sure which realm this entire ordeal settled into, she knew that none of them would be the same after. 

Her mind drifted back to what the old guard would’ve done, and it made Ellie’s stomach twist uncomfortably. 

_I’m not them,_ she told herself, taking in a shaky breath through her mouth. _They’re not here, and this is my operation now. So, to Hell with what they might’ve expected from me._ She exhaled slowly from her nose, closing her eyes tightly as she begged the knot in her stomach to unfurl. _I have my own squad, and they’re good people... and a mage. I can do this,_ Ellie thought, running a hand through her hair nervously as her eyes flicked in the direction Saeko walked in. _I_ ** _have_** _to do this._

Though she didn’t want to, her memories returned to October 9th, 2018. She remembered the effort she put into the costume she wore that day, and how _proud_ of it she was. The officer remembered the hours she spent picking out the perfect silk to use for the base, the _days_ it took for her to mold the craft foam perfectly to get the star-like formation on the bodice, the literal month it took for her to work all the LEDs into the sword of Grayskull she had 3D printed... 

However, the wailing from Nora brought her solidly back to 2020. 

She could hear footsteps approaching, and took a second for her to steel herself well enough to look up. 

“Oh,” the hunter gasped. “Saeko!” 

The consultant approached with the barely-red purse in one hand and a tiny blue phone in the other, looking quite cross. She almost wanted to ask what had happened, but from the way he shook his head she decided against it. “Is she still in there?” he asked, pointing to the door. 

“Well, yeah,” Ellie began slowly, her nose scrunching up as confusion welled in her chest. “But I lent her my phone so she could talk with her husband, so she’s a little busy right now.” She pushed herself from the wall and took a few steps toward him, adding, “Besides, she says anything without us in there, the microphones will pick it up. She might be more open with her husband about things than she was with us, but whatever she says, we can review it once we let her go.” 

The way he looked at her had Ellie convinced he thought she was stupid, but graciously he didn’t speak on it. Instead, he replied, “You’re going to let her go?” 

Ellie’s eyes narrowed as the tone the consultant used struck her like an off-key note. “Well, _yeah_.” The hunter shrugged, not quite able to meet his eyes as the prior feeling of _inadequacy_ tried wriggling its way back up into her throat. “What _else_ am I supposed to do?” The old guard popped up once more in her head, but she wasn’t brave enough to verbalize the thought. _My operation, my people,_ ** _my_** _choice,_ she reminded herself. _It doesn’t matter what they would’ve done, not anymore._

Saeko stared at her for another moment before knocking on the interrogation room’s door. The wails had quieted down over the last few moments, but now they were silenced completely as the soccer mom made her way to the door and opened it. Her eyes lit up as she saw her things, and she started to cry again, thanking him profusely. 

With a wave of his hand, he simply told her, “We’re here to help people. We want to help you get home just as much as you want to be there.” 

As she went back inside, hugging her things to her chest, Ellie whispered to the consultant, “Hey, I’m going to check on the food. If anything, it might still be with Sharon. Just... don’t forget my phone, please.” He gave her a curt nod, and took her post by the door. 

Walking to the secretary desk at the front of the precinct, Ellie took the time to go over what she currently knew about this entire case, now that she had a moment of peace. From what she knew from the other people brought in to the precincts, they had similar stories about ending up at a bar, club, or concert hall that ended with them walking their way to New York. The only one that was the worst off was Nora, but even then, there were people from _all across_ the country making their way here. 

But why? Ellie couldn’t help but feel so confused as to what this was – it might’ve been a cult, but that would be a level of brainwashing even she had never encountered before. Drugs were a massive possibility, too, since there were new designer drugs out and about all the time. The last option was something supernatural, but she couldn’t even _guess_ where she should start looking. UCI’s personal notes were carelessly kept at best, and were never full of _solutions_ on how to approach situations. Instead, the reports provided the statement given to the mundane people upstairs, stripped clean of any supernatural or _weird_ events to prevent any panic. 

As the desk came into sight, Ellie plastered her best smile across her face and upped the charm to 10 ask she leaned behind the secretary’s station, asking, “Did my food come in, Sharon?” 

Sharon, a middle-aged woman with the attitude of a biker gang leader than a secretary for a police department, gave her a quick nod and hooked a thumb over her shoulder. “Back’n the break room, kid. Hurry, though, the vultures started early today.” 

Groaning slightly, the hunter tapped the counter for a moment before replying, already moving the way that she indicated, “Thanks. I’ll make sure they save you a plate?” 

Smiling in return, the secretary laughed and said, “Sure, kid. I’ll be there soon.” 

Ellie picked up the pace and walked back the way she’d come from, taking a left at the interrogation room and nearly jogging as she went down the corridor. Saeko gave her an odd look as she passed, but she just waved at him and continued on her quest. _I swear, if there’s no more food left, I’m strangling every one of the officers that stepped foot in the precinct today,_ she thought bitterly, huffing slightly. She just wanted her food and to eat it in peace for once. Was that too much to ask? 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (look, like, I love Carter being #chaoticdumbass, but don't get in the way of her food.)
> 
> This is a short chapter, mostly because at this point it was Saeko getting into something with the evidence locker, and Ellie was getting food, and they were all just a mess lol.
> 
> Hope y'all enjoy anyway?
> 
> (Chapter title is based on DNCE - Cake By The Ocean.)


	17. survivor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More food talk, and Ellie attempts to settle Nora in a little more before seeing the other two 'guests' to the precinct.

Somehow managing to grab enough food for herself, Saeko, and the three people waiting for them, Ellie walked back to the interrogation room looking more like she was a circus performer doing a plate-balancing act rather than a police officer conducting official interrogation business. The woman could feel the looks from other officers as she walked by, but it wasn’t like she _expected_ this to happen today; she just wanted to make sure the people she was watching over were being fed. 

Their stares didn’t bother her, anyway, not after some of the other cases she’d worked on left her looking even worse for wear. 

(Honestly, it also helped that some of the _vultures_ put money into a jar to pay her for the bit they’ve taken; she was fully expecting to eat ramen for the next two months after splurging like this, so it was a nice surprise, at the very least.) 

The room with Nora was (thankfully) the closest of the three, so as she approached, the hunter called out, “Hey, Saeko, can you open the door for me please?” He turned his head to look at her, but did as she asked without question, even if his nose did scrunch up slightly. “Thanks!” she cooed, shooting him her brightest smile before she ducked into the room; she didn’t want to see if the smile had worked on him like it did the other men in the precinct, unwilling to risk the chance that he would call her out for staring at him too long. 

_That’d be weird, right? Totally unprofessional,_ she told herself, steeling herself as she stepped towards the table. _Try not to be as weird as you always are, and maybe the mage won’t use a few spells on you to stop talking._ If that was even how it worked. Was that how spells worked? 

Ellie would investigate later. 

Nora looked almost startled as the door opened, her face puffy and red but the tears no longer flowing. The borrowed phone was turned off and pushed to the other end of the table from her, and looked like it had been there at least for a moment. The officer wondered if the call had ended earlier than expected, or if the soccer mom just wanted a moment to herself given the circumstances, but hoped that the woman was alright either way. “Hey, there,” Ellie murmured, offering her a more sincere smile than the one she gave to Saeko. “I brought food, if you’re still hungry.” She leaned down to show the plates to Nora, and the woman’s demeanor turned from sorrow to relief. Before she could say anything, her stomach growling nearly as loud as a car engine revving. Ellie smiled widened as she half-laughed, “You wanna tell me how the call was while you pick out what you want?” 

The woman shrugged, sniffling slightly as she shifted in her seat uncomfortably. “If you’re asking if I told them something that I didn’t tell you, no, I didn’t. But...” Her eyes grew to the size of plates as her gaze roved across the different Chinese dishes, another growl rolling throughout the room. “I _am_ really hungry.” 

With a slight chuckle, the officer leaned down even further to allow Nora to see better. “There’s enough to go around, so if you’re still hungry after, we can help you with that. Just go slow, okay?” 

A moment passed, but the soccer mom finally decided on one of the plates – something with plenty of veggies and rice, Ellie noticed offhandedly – and settled herself as comfortably as she could at the table, staring at the food quietly. 

“If you need anything,” the hunter started as she made her way back to the door, the other plates still carefully balanced on her arms, “let Saeko or me know. We won’t be very far, so just poke your head out and we’ll be here for you. Okay?” 

“Where are you going?” The way she said it almost sounded like she threw up the words, the panic dripping from her voice crystal clear; but, Ellie simply turned around and offered her as genuine of a smile as she could muster, even as her own heart sank. 

“We have two others here that were in similar situations to you, Nora,” she answered. “I’m just going to give them their food, and listen to their stories, too. I shouldn’t be very long.” 

Nora frowned, the corners of her eyes crinkling. “But wasn’t my testimony enough?” 

“It was,” the officer agreed, shifting around the plates as she remained in the doorway. “But even if we have a lead, having their information can help us prevent anyone else from getting hurt.” 

The soccer mom played with the edges of her dirty shirt, worrying her lip as she looked like she wanted to say something more. Instead, she met Ellie’s eyes and whispered, her hand hovering over Ellie’s phone, “I don’t think I need this anymore, officer. My phone’s been charged, so I can call my family from it if I need to.” 

“Sure thing! I hope it was helpful, at least.” She turned to Saeko, his arms crossed over his chest as he watched her, remaining silent all the while. “Could you hold onto my phone for me until I come back? I promise I won’t be gone for very long.” 

He took a step towards her, as if to move past her, but instead grabbed two of the plates and settled them down on the chairs by the interrogation room, then took the other two and started making his way towards the other two suites. “I’ll feed the other two instead.” 

“No, honestly, it’s okay,” she started as she reached for the plates, but he quickly shot her a look that quieted her down. 

He leaned in close to her and whispered, his breath hot against her cheek, “If you want a phone, I suggest you don’t ask me to hold it again.” 

She stood there, watching him as he left, wondering what the Hell that was all about. Her face felt incredibly hot, and she didn’t know why _this_ was what was bugging her today. 

“You could’ve just said no,” she muttered eventually, turning around to grab her phone off of the table to leave Nora to her own devices. Either the woman ignored them or was being polite, but either way, the officer was grateful for Nora’s silence. She closed the door behind her and started scarfing down her own Chinese food, eyeing the end of the corridor where Saeko disappeared into. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait; I've been having a Hell of a tough time writing this. I'm posting it as it, even though I thoroughly wanted to add at least double what I'd written so far, but I was just so unenthusiastic about this part of the story that I couldn't get myself to write it. Also, this has been a hard month for me, but I hope y'all are doing well.
> 
> Hope you enjoy.
> 
> Title is inspired by Survivor - 2WEI.


	18. sell your soul

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ellie takes the time for some Me Time, and has lots of thoughts that aren't exactly PG when it comes to her sort of, not really co-worker.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NSFW.
> 
> You don't have to read this chapter, as it doesn't really have any weight on the rest of the story; it was just an interlude from a few situations in the campaign that I wanted to write out.
> 
> In the meantime: thank you for sticking around and reading this far into my story. I really enjoyed recounting the shenanigans my group got into, and now I'm just spitting out my own headcannons about my character and other things she had going on while the story was happening. I'll post another chapter soon.

If it hadn’t been clear to her before, her fate was blaring in her face like a big, bright neon sign after today’s shift: the stress was _going_ to kill her someday if she didn’t do something about it to change. 

As she threw her paint-stained backpack into the corner of her apartment, Ellie shuffled over to her desk chair and collapsed into it, allowing the softness of the cushions to envelope her like a suffocating cloud. She was _so_ exhausted – beyond exhausted, if she wanted to be honest with herself – that Ellie could barely even remember the drive home, despite the fact she’d left work _early_ today. It had literally been years since she last had this type of exhaustion overcome her, but she couldn’t really help it. 

Today really, _really_ sucked the energy right out of her, and all she could think was how it would truly be the end of her. 

After bringing Nora her food and allowing Saeko to take the remaining plates to the other two who were still being held for questioning – the business woman from Florida, Tamara Sanders, and the construction worker from the Bronx, Maxwell Simmons – the officer had spent the better part of her time scarfing down her own food and looking for any prior convictions between the three that could’ve helped her pinpoint further whether this was a drug-related incident or a cult-one. 

Or, something else far more supernatural. That was still a massive possibility here. 

She was able to spend all of ten minutes working through her self-induced mission before shouting had come from one of the other rooms, followed by a loud crash that sounded like furniture being thrown around. Being the only officer within the immediate vicinity, Ellie threw herself from her seat and ran to the interrogation room, her hand on her taser’s holster as she kicked open the door, fearing the worst. 

Standing beside a toppled table was the construction worker on one end and the mage at the other, staring each other down like two trains colliding. Although Saeko's posture appeared calm, the way his jaw clenched reminded her of the night in the alley with Dylan. Maxwell, on the other hand, was hunched over and breathing heavily, his hands up as if ready to start a fist fight, a snarl on his rugged face as he stared down the younger man. 

The moment the door opened, however, the spell over the two men shattered, and they turned to stare at her with wide eyes – Saeko in surprise, Maxwell in rage – until the construction worker turned and focused his rampage on her. 

After that, it all was a blur to her; it was something that Ellie partially blamed on not being a _real_ police officer trained to deal with this situation on the daily, but she knew it was more so due to the fact that she held her own issues when it came to men screaming in her face, irrelevant if they were built like an absolute unit or not. She _knows_ she should’ve been able to handle the entire situation better – for fuck’s sake, her hand was on her taser! – but facing down a man easily three times her size made her freeze right in her spot as it happened, and she felt _awful_ for letting it escalate to that point in the first place. However, even with the hazy recollection she had, she remembered his red face in full detail as it hung an inch from hers, his body shaking as heat radiated from him while he bellowed; she could recall bits and pieces of the absolute nonsense he spouted, screaming about losing his job due to this incident and that he would make “them” pay for his loss; and, even hours later, she could still feel how her body wanted to melt under the immense pressure of this man’s fury. 

Ellie was sure that if she held her hands up, she would see them shaking still. It didn’t make her feel good to think about it for too long, but she couldn’t help it; it _just_ happened, after all, and this entire case seemed to put everyone involved on a razor’s edge. Someone was bound to snap at some point, she supposed. It just sucked that it was with her at the epicenter of it. 

The only coherent thought she could recall while he had been shrieking at her at the top of his lungs was why _he_ was the only one out of the three being held that had to have been the most explosive, but it didn’t really matter in the end: when she didn’t make a move to respond to any of his questions, Ellie saw the man lifting his fist as if it was all happening in slow motion, and all she did was brace for the impact. 

Before the hit came, however, Saeko told the man to _sit down and behave_ , and the man just... _did_. 

The rage was easily visible on the man’s face, but for now, he was calm, even if it was a false one. 

_Was that because he used magic?_ she couldn’t help but wonder, half-terrified of the answer. If he could just look at people and force them to do whatever he wanted – even if it was for a _helpful_ reason – what else could he do with that power? Had he used it on someone the officer knew, or even on herself? Would she even recognize it happening if it occurred right in front of her, or would she be oblivious to it? Did she only notice it today because of the immediate change in Maxwell’s behavior once the mage had ordered him to stop? 

However, in the moment, these thoughts hadn’t yet crossed Ellie’s mind; she could only watch helplessly as Saeko stood beside the still-quaking construction worker, until Sharon came upon the scene and pulled her away just as a dozen heavily armored police officers ran in to deal with the situation. 

The secretary – God bless her lovely soul – managed to drag Ellie all the way back to her office, sitting her down in the chair with a cup of water and some crackers. The woman remained just by the ginger’s side as everything seemed to explode further, but Ellie didn’t get that part of the story until she was approached by Jaws. 

Once the dozen officers had come to restrain Maxwell, Saeko left the room and allowed the proper authorities to deal with the man, but whatever spell that had come over him broke, allowing him to fully encapsulate in that rage-filled state once more, leaving many of the officers worse for wear. 

Hence, Jaws’s involvement at the end of the whole ordeal. 

That part of her day she couldn’t recall, no matter how hard she tried; she just _knew_ all of this had happened without the memory of being told it, and found herself driving home with an early dismissal slip tucked away in her uniform shirt’s breast pocket and a refill of her prescription for doxepin neatly sealed away in her backpack. 

God _fucking_ bless Jaws and his attention to her needs, even before she knew he had done anything. 

But, as she continued driving home, it hit the ginger that she desperately needed a serious moment away from the precinct, if only to make sure she didn’t suffer from anything worse as a result of that incident. 

Leaning her arms up over her head, Ellie carefully stretched in her chair until a series of satisfying pops sounded from her shoulders and back. Relaxing against the seat’s back properly, a sigh escaped the woman as she looked down on herself, a slight frown forming on her face. 

God, she wanted to take a shower _so_ fucking badly and just scrub the day’s issues away. 

Slowly, she reached down and began to unlace her uniform’s boots, taking the time to undo the tight knots as patiently as she could manage. Normally, the ginger would simply kick off the boots and deal with the repercussions of days’-old knots later; today, she wanted to focus on one thing at a time, and remind herself that she was extremely lucky to not be a puddle of goo in the interrogation room right now. 

It was the small things like that fact that made her happy to be alive, even if everything around her continued to go to shit every other week. 

Once her feet could easily wiggle out from the stiff leather prisons, Ellie straightened back against the chair once again and used her heels to kick each boot off from the other foot, leaving them somewhere beneath her desk. She curled her toes slowly, watching as the black fabric holding them stretched and pulled against her movement. 

With a satisfied hum, the woman moved her fingers to her uniform blouse and unbuttoned it slowly, her gaze not quite staying on anything in particular. It wasn’t until her eyes locked onto a coffee stain just by her feet – about the size of a dinner plate, and just beneath the right edge of her desk – that the happy noise died in her throat. 

“I thought I cleaned that mess up already,” Ellie said to herself, her brow furling as she tried thinking back to the night last week when she’d woken up from her nightmare. “How could I’ve missed a spot like that?” She sat staring at it for a moment longer, the muscles in her body tense yet refusing to move to clean the spot. 

A small part of her whispered to her, _That stain’s been here for, like,_ ** _a week_** _; another day wouldn’t kill it. Just take a shower, and everything will work itself out later._

With a sigh, Ellie finished unbuttoning and stripped from the blouse, then quickly removed her tank top and bra as well, the chilly air hitting her even if she didn’t immediately react to it. Though it was the middle of spring now, it was still quite cold, even in a small space like this, and she could feel goosebumps rising up all over her exposed skin. She watched the bumps raise with a tired curiosity, but didn’t make a move to go towards the shower; she kept staring at that _damned_ spot, frustration bubbling in her chest as a battalion of emotions threatened to overwhelm her. 

Instead of fixing the issue of her frustration, the officer found herself thinking back to the conversation she had had with Saeko after he took the plates from her to give to Tamara and Maxwell. This specific memory certainly made her question where her mind was going; but, it made her feel like she already was now – cold and hot all at once, covered in goosebumps, _frustrated_ to no end – and that gave her some grounding, even if it was only just to formulate more questions. 

Why would she not have a phone if he held onto it? Was he just accident-prone and constantly dropped them in the worst places that left them broken beyond repair, and this was his awkward way to warn her about that attribute of his? Why would he say it so _close_ to her like that, if he was trying to tell her he was clumsy and shouldn’t risk losing her phone with him? 

_Why did it still make her feel so bothered?_

Scooting back from her desk with more force than she expected, Ellie nearly toppled backward over her chair as it got caught on her carpet. Letting loose a string of curses, the officer stumbled off of the seat and looked at the clothes strewn about the tiny apartment, standing only in her trousers, socks, and underwear, surveying the messiness of her living space if only to force herself to focus on anything _but_ the state of her body. 

Honestly, she had half a mind to just fall asleep and forget about taking the shower she so desperately wanted; on the other hand, she was far too worked up about a simple, nondescript conversation to even think about resting peacefully at the moment. 

Even with her newly filled prescription of doxepin, the ginger knew the medication would only _keep_ her asleep, not _put_ her to sleep. She would, somehow, have to get herself there before hand for it to keep her knocked out; with thoughts like these, Ellie knew she would be staring at the ceiling all night. 

She needed to take care of it before it got any more out of hand. 

Although the medication had helped her for the first few months she’d been prescribed it, it didn’t help that she felt like she was becoming accustomed to the low dosages Jaws had her at. Sure, it _probably_ didn’t help that Ellie had been doubling up on her dosages over the last few months, even if it meant she was getting those horrible nightmares towards the end of the month due to her not having enough meds to last her the _full_ prescription period. Doxepin didn’t have too many side effects that would really make her already-wonky schedule suffer any further, and it was something Ellie was grateful for, even if she had screwed herself over by not only lying to her best friend, but taking far too much medication than she should have been. 

Toeing the carpet underneath her chair until it returned to its natural state, Ellie watched the gentle fibers of the carpet relent under her foot’s pressure, enjoying the way that it fit so _perfectly_ where it needed to. 

Once again, she was reminded of Saeko, but this time of the alleyway when the mage had pressed his boot on Dylan’s chest – the sound from the creaking of his bones, to the ear-splitting scream he released, and finally the way the boot splashed in the puddles on the asphalt – and it made her more _frustrated_. 

“God, get some _fucking_ rest, you needy bitch,” she hissed to herself as she wriggled her belt out of its loops, yanking far harder than she should’ve. As she chucked the leather into another corner of her apartment, the buckle clinking as it hit something solid on its way down, she wasted no time in unbuttoning her pants and slid them and her panties off of her hips in one awkward motion, leaving her only in her socks. 

_Focusing on your sort of, not really co-worker in a sexual way won’t be a great way to end an already shitty day, El,_ she chastised herself silently, her frown deepening to a glare at nothing in particular. _Get in the Goddamn shower, and get this over with. If you need something else after, you know who to call._

She shuffled across the floor and headed towards the closet-sized shower, squeezing herself into the tiny space and stepping into the shower as she turned it on. The frigid water hit her full-on, a surprised yelp escaping her as she scrambled to exit the enclosed space, more curses flying from her as the chill settled uncomfortably against her hot skin. Leaning down, she struggled with pulling off the soaked stockings, a disgruntled sigh escaping her as she worked on the fabric. 

Leaving the shower door open from her escape, Ellie watched with bored fascination as the steam started to fog up the edges of the glass door, the moisture eventually pooling into the rest of her apartment and leaving it in a muggy, yet somewhat comfortable haze. The officer abandoned her soggy clothes in a pile right next to the door, now standing completely naked in her apartment, feeling so out of her element in that moment. Although the goosebumps were no longer present, she now felt a deep, roiling _need_ spilling out from her gut, as well as an ache that started from the heels of her feet all the way up to the upper part of her back. 

Just... she felt _so_ unnaturally achy, it bothered the woman to no end. 

When she started to feel the condensation settle on her skin, Ellie decided to jump into the shower once more, exhaling a sigh of pleasure as the near-boiling water hit her back. The pressure from the showerhead hit her muscles _exactly_ where Ellie needed it to, and it left her filled with bliss that momentarily took all the sense from her. 

Closing the door before she got too comfortable, Ellie made sure to lock it before leaning herself into the frosted glass, allowing the water to work its magic into her muscles. 

Her mind wandered back to the day’s events, but more so in a morbidly curious way than anything else; she was too spent to give any more of her energy to the issues from the precinct, and would only hope it would roll over tomorrow before she returned to work. 

She knew some of the other police officers got a few bad bruises from Maxwell’s rage, and Ellie offhandedly wondered if she should send them an apology (or thank you?) gift for intervening after she had been whisked away. 

“Well, if _anyone_ deserved a gift like that, it would certainly be Saeko,” she mumbled into the glass, her fingers tapping on the frosted edges for a moment before she turned into the hot stream, allowing the scalding water to hit her front now. Hissing quietly, the woman continued with a groan, “Maybe magic could really be useful in this line of work?” All the possibilities hit her seemingly at once, and as every single one rolled in front of her mind’s eye, Ellie couldn’t help but hum in contemplation. 

She leaned past the stream of the showerhead and pumped some soap into her hands, lathering the mixture up slowly and watching as the bubbles became too much for her to hold. Most of it slipped down the drain, tickling her aching feet as they fell; what was left, Ellie began to run slow circles around her body, working her knuckles into the far-too sensitive bits that the water couldn’t quite reach. 

If _she_ had that trick to tell someone to sit down and shut up, it would certainly make aggressive interactions with the supernatural a Hell of a lot easier. Not to mention, if she could make the affects permanent, maybe she could do a catch-and-release ordeal and make the perpetrators promise never to do bad things again, and they’d just _listen_ to her. It might prevent another Marthus situation from happening, at the very least; wouldn’t that save her so much time? 

Not to mention the pleasure she could gain from having a consenting partner who knew about it; she wondered what _that_ sex would look like in the right partner’s hands. 

A moan escaped her as her fingers gently ran along her aching thighs, the bubbles immediately rinsing down her legs from the motion. Ellie’s hands continued to play along the seam between her thighs, long after all of the soap had gone down the drain. A single thought hit the ginger just as she dipped a single finger past her lips, and it made her gasp louder than she should’ve. _If the mage’s willing to stand up for_ ** _me_** _, what else is he willing to do?_

It was a thought that carried her blissfully throughout the rest of the shower, taking as long as she wanted to come countless times. 

As she finally turned off the shower and pulled herself from the tiny space, an equally tiny towel draped over her soaked form, Ellie collapsed onto her small bed, too exhausted to move. 

Maybe, so long as she kept her thoughts about her sort of, not really co-worker to herself, this would be an alright solution for the time being. 

She didn’t even remember to take her medication before drifting off, the thoughts of her own fantasies following her into her deep slumber. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you managed to read; hello! This is my first seriously NSFW chapter I've posted in... years. I hope y'all enjoy, even if my thoughts are all over the place.
> 
> (Chapter name is influenced by 'Sell Your Soul' by Hollywood Undead.)


	19. Heavy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As the hunter dreams, she comes face to face with the nightmare that has been haunting her for months. 
> 
> It doesn't end well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the next continuation of the story! However, there will be a slight trigger warning for body horror, blood, mental manipulation/anguish/instability, hallucinations, stalking/being hunted, some eldritch creature, and being trapped.

Drifting off to sleep was much easier for Ellie than she’d expected it to be, what with the countless questions swarming her mind from the day’s events. She still found herself confused as to why out of all of the people who were brought in for questioning, the construction worker was the only _violent_ one; even more, she wondered why Saeko stepped in – and, with no doubt in her mind, by using _magic_ to do so, no less– to stop the man from hitting her. 

More importantly, the hunter wondered why her gut felt so empty after spending nearly an hour masturbating in the shower to incoherent thoughts about random interactions between herself and the mage. 

All of these elements of the day swarmed into some senseless dream sequence that dragged her through the precinct like a lifeless marionette, mimicking her actions throughout her shift up until she entered her apartment. It bothered the officer while the dream overtook her, but eventually, she grew to accept the course her brain was making her follow, and she simply waited patiently for the ride to end. 

It would eventually, after all. 

As she recognized the dream was taking her back to her apartment, she expected her subconscious to force her to relive those short hours as well; instead, when she opened the door to her home, she found herself staring down a long, dark hallway. Although it was nearly pitch black in the confined space, there was a sliver of light shining from underneath the seemingly millions of doors that lined either side of the corridor. It gave her the sense that it just went on for _forever_ , with no end in sight. 

Hesitantly, Ellie urged herself forward with a single step into the hallway, afraid she would be yanked back by the invisible strings. Yet, when her feet hit the floor solidly without any form of resistance keeping her back, relief flooded her for the first time since she’d fallen asleep. 

Bolting down the hallway with her newfound freedom hot on her heels, the hunter looked for any sign of familiarity with the doors, an uncomfortable feeling creeping along her spine the further she ran. It was similar to what she felt when she was being watched while driving during the last case; but this time, it felt as if it were settled _right_ on the back of her neck, and it made her want to scream in fear. 

“Hello?” she shouted, her words sounding far away, even to her own ears. Almost _warped_ , like she was speaking through an electric fan rather than an empty, supposedly echoing space. But, despite that, Ellie tried once again, nearly screaming this time, “ _Hello?_ Is anyone there? Please, help me!” 

Somewhere down the hall, she heard a door open, the light flooding the darkened area and blinding her for a moment. 

Without thinking, Ellie ran as fast as she could to the bright light, racing right over its threshold and tripping over herself as she passed through. She fell right over someone bent down that was holding something small in their hands, knocking both of them to the ground in a flurry of arms and legs and things much heavier than limbs that came down in a loud _crash_. 

“Oh gosh, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to –” Ellie began quickly, but was cut short as she recognized the face of the person she’d toppled. “Sara?” she asked, her eyebrows raised in surprise. “I haven’t seen you since –” 

“Last week in theater class, you _dork_ ,” the girl replied with a wide smile, showing off the beautiful dimples in her chin and left cheek. Her eyes shone bright like a cup of honey in the sun, and Ellie’s heart melted slightly as she looked over the other woman, confusion blossoming in her chest despite the happiness she felt. “Now _c’mon_ , get up! You’re heavy!” 

Pushing themselves off of the floor, the ginger turned to look down at herself and saw bright, golden wheat hair rather than her natural strawberry blonde. A curse was already halfway out of her mouth before Sara leaned up on her tip-toes to shush Ellie, chastising quietly, “You’re _in character!_ Don’t blow it for the fans.” Pulling her finger away, she waved at some unseen group in the distance, but the hunter couldn’t see whoever it was that Sara was motioning to. 

Ellie turned her gaze down and looked at herself – really, _really_ looked – and realized just what she was wearing: her She-Ra costume. 

There was only one single time she’d worn it in a public setting, and that was at Comic-Con in 2018; that day also happened to be the very last one Ellie was able to hold onto her blissfully unaware life, before UCI came knocking on her hospital room door to give her the only _safe_ option for her to continue living with. 

“Oh, God, _no_ ,” she muttered to herself, panic rising in her chest. “No, no, _nonono_ _,_ this is _not_ happening right now.” 

“What isn’t?” Sara said as she turned back to the panic-stricken cosplayer, holding up her camera as another blinding smile stretching across her perfect face. The scar that had been on her best friend’s face from an accident the year prior was no longer there, instead replaced by a streak of glitter too bright for the hunter to stare at directly. “C’mon, babe,” the photographer continued after a moment of silence, lacing her free hand around one of Ellie's limp hands. “Let’s go take some photos with fans for some social media recognition. Hm? Then we can go grab a snack and head to the costume contest. How does that sound?” 

Staring at her childhood friend’s face, Ellie tried _so hard_ to pinpoint why it was making her feel so unsettled. Although she knew something was wrong – like the weird hallway she had come crashing through just moments before – she couldn’t figure out what it was for the life of her. 

Before she could attempt to explain to Sara how she was feeling, or that she just needed a moment to collect herself, Ellie was being dragged through the crowd, the other woman spouting off their day’s plans. Although, she found herself only half-listening to Sara’s detailed plans, her eyes wandering around the Jacob K. Javits convention center as she tried desperately to find the source of the unease. 

Nothing _seemed_ out of the ordinary to the hunter; beyond the fact that Sara looked perfect like a little doll, Ellie couldn’t figure out anything else out of place. It was just like she remembered it: cosplayers of all kinds were being swarmed by fans for photos, while some people stood at a stand-still in lines to meet their favorite actors or artists, and even the scent of a thousand people all standing so close to one another in an enclosed space for too long. 

Only, Ellie started to notice that every time she looked at Sara, whether on purpose or as an accident, the feeling in her gut would grow tenfold, nearly consuming her in just a few moments. 

Struggling against the woman’s grasp as utter panic enveloped her, Ellie started, “Look, Sara, I have to use the restroom, can we make a quick stop?” Yet, Sara completely ignored her, save for the slight tightening of her hold on the ginger’s wrist. “Sara? Did you even hear me? This isn’t funny, I _really_ have to get out of here. _Please,_ just –” The hunter kept pulling, but the grip on her wrist kept constricting, until she could feel the bones separating until her arm unfolded like an accordion, creating a vast rift between the two women. 

A horrified scream escaped her mouth as she gave one last tug, ripping the connection she had with Sara. Falling unceremoniously onto her ass, Ellie watched as her arm deflated and fell from her friend’s hand like a balloon that lost its potency to remain floating; Sara continued to hold her hand, the appendage losing its color rapidly and turning into a blackened husk, before it started crumbling like spent charcoal. 

Slowly turning to face Ellie, the woman’s face was stuck in a too-wide smile that seemed like her entire jaw was separating from the rest of her face, her tongue lolling out of the side of her jaw as a cackle left the gaping maw that was once Sara’s mouth. 

“Don’t you want to keep playing, El?” the creature cooed, still using her friend’s voice to speak with her. “That’s what we’ve been doing here, isn’t it?” The longer the entity talked, the more horrific the image of her childhood friend became: her camera was no longer an identifiable piece of technology, but rather a twisted skull with iron spikes sticking right through it and blood oozing from its eyes; her mouth became full of sharp teeth that went in and down the entirety of her throat, which blazed white-hot like a piece of metal being superheated; her body became scaley and twisted, elongated far beyond that of a normal human being’s proportions as it reached over the sea of people and attempted to snatch Ellie back into its grasp. 

Another scream left the ginger before she knew what was happening, but she managed to do one thing despite the panic flooding her mind: she got up and _ran_. 

Shedding some of the useless pieces of the armor from her body – like the stupid cape, or the wig and winged helm that kept threatening to fall over her eyes – Ellie ran through the crowd sporadically, attempting to find an exit; even a _window_ would do, she was that determined to put distance between herself and that _thing_. Yet, no matter how many twists or turns she took throughout the convention center, she kept finding herself end up in the same lobby over and over again. 

Every time she would turn to look over her shoulder, she would see that twisted form of Sara creep around from a corner, its body growing larger in size and closer in distance every time Ellie looked. 

So, the ginger tried her damnedest to not look back. 

“Aaawwww,” came from the demented Sara, the creature’s voice far too deep and sinister to be the girl she’d grown up with. “You’re no _fuuuuun_ _,_ El.” 

Feeling out of breath as she continued to run in circles, Ellie shouted, “What the _fuck_ do you want?! This isn’t fucking funny!” A rumble shook the entire building in response, but no one seemed to notice. They did, however, notice her insane screaming, and continuously chastised her for her use of foul language. Pointing angrily to the creature behind her, being absolutely careful to not look back at it, Ellie screamed, “Do you not _see that thing?_ It’s huge, and has been fucking chasing me around the convention center all day!” 

Yet, no one believed her – or, worse, no one could even _see_ the thing, and she was just hallucinating this entire scenario – and kept giving her nasty looks as she would run by them. Eventually, their own forms began turning into ghoulish versions of themselves, the skin slipping off of their bones like old, warm pudding would out of a cup. They started to close in around her, leaving her with less room every time she made a lap around the convention center. Her arm hung uselessly by her side, the extended appendage training behind her like a wedding dress’s train. Some of the ghouls started stepping on it, pinning in her in place for a moment to force her to stop her escape and spend a moment to work herself free. 

A scream of frustration left the woman as she looked up to see a blazing, yellow eye staring down at her from the ceiling, a puff of black smoke filling the chamber as it spoke. “Therrrre is no place you can ruuuuun to that I won’t fiiiiind you, El.” 

Closing her eyes tightly as she choked on the sulfurous cloud, the ginger made the same turn around a corner for the millionth time, expecting to see the ghouls even closer this time. However, she was pleasantly surprised to see this area was the same as it had been – hours? days? weeks? – earlier, before the pursuit of that creature had begun. 

However, a new door appeared in one of the walls off to her left, the word ‘janitor’ written on it in big, golden letters. Running up to it, Ellie yanked on the door handle until it relented, a sob of relief escaping her as she tossed herself through the doorway, not even taking a moment to looking inside. 

A hole opened up right before her, the darkness sucking her into its depths before she could even cry out in surprise. 

Ellie thrashed in the confinements of the space, screaming on the top of her lungs despite the silence that echoed back to her. She kicked, clawed, and bit at the strange thing holding her, becoming angrier as it refused to release her. Despite begging, trying to bargain, and even threatening the thing holding her in order to let her go, a part of her knew what was coming next. 

That single yellow eye slowly came into view over her, the entity blinking slowly as it watched her struggle. Another rumble shook the space around her, this time shattering her bones as it happened; as a pain-filled scream left her throat raw, it was swallowed up by the darkness, never reaching her ears. 

“Scream  aaahhhhll you want,” the entity cooed, breathing more of that suffocating smoke in her direction. “No one  wiiiillll come to  saaaave you here.  You’rrrrrre _mine_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've had this chapter on my mind for nearly a year now; when my DM and I started talking about Ellie's backstory, I literally gave him 'cosplayer who went as She-Ra and confronted an entity that thought she was a paladin of old, and attacked her.'
> 
> He didn't go exactly in that direction, but the suspense he made me feel while exploring her place in his world made me excited EVERY week to come back to it.
> 
> I hope y'all enjoy this chapter. It's been a long time coming.
> 
> (This chapter's title is based on the song Heavy by Linkin Park. It felt appropriate.)


	20. Rumors (all around)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ellie faces lots of questions, the impossibly dense weight of her own world view, and an emotional spiral the morning after a horrific nightmare that felt all-too real; she gets a call that sparks something in her, even if it isn't the healthiest for her to follow it.

The hunter laid curled-up in her bed long after her phone’s alarm went off, unable to move from her position under the mountain of blankets cocooning her. The woman couldn’t find the energy to blink, let alone pull the covers off and get ready for work; the memories of her nightmare lingered on her mind unlike any of the other terrors she’d had over the last year, the entire experience leaving her quite disturbed from the tortures her mind concocted. 

For once, the hunter could recall the entire thing, as if it had been a movie she’d seen rather than some horrible dreamscape she felt like she lived through. Parts of the horrifying dream came to her throughout the morning hours, all jumbled in its order but crystal clear in its delivery – and that was what kept her stuck inside the soft mountain, too emotionally vacant to face the day. 

As exhausted as Ellie felt, however, her mind drifted back to the evening before and the close-call she had with Maxwell that nearly led to a fight with him. Despite working it over in her mind over and over to see where she’d gone wrong – Hell, what the entire _force_ had done so wrong as to let it escalate to that point – she _still_ didn’t understand why out of the three people stuck at the precinct, the construction worker had been the only one to get violent, _especially_ given the fact that the two women had more reason to be angry they weren’t permitted to leave. 

He’d been in this situation for a single night, at the very _worst_ ; these women were gone for _multiple days_ , and managed to keep their cool demeanor even after the millionth cop asked for their stories. Those two women could’ve thrown a tantrum – threatened lawyers, even, or assaulted any number of the officers and medical personnel they’d seen – but the women had been far calmer than Ellie would’ve been if she found herself in the same situation. 

The ginger spent half a moment wondering what would’ve happened to her had Saeko not stepped in and told the man to _sit down and behave_ – not to mention, she was more than sure that he had used Bonafide magic on the construction worker, even if the hunter wasn’t entirely sure what that meant in the first place. Could she have even stopped him from using it even if she tried? Did that mean he at least cared enough about the officer to not warrant allowing her to get pummeled? Had she just gotten him on a good day, and he wanted to do something out of his way to protect her? Could he use magic on someone if they knew he was doing it to them? 

She absently wondered if watching him use his abilities so nonchalantly – how ever he’d managed to do it – had triggered last night’s round of nightmares; or, perhaps, it simply came from the stress of facing a man easily twice her size as he screamed in her face about being inconvenienced for the day. 

Whatever had been the cause, Ellie felt a deep roiling shame bloom in her gut about what she’d done when she got home after that event unfolded – that she’d _fantasized_ about the consultant, and had used the thought of him putting Maxwell under his spell as some weird jumping-off point for a moment of pleasure. Although the guilt had started last night, she’d fallen asleep nearly the moment her head hit the pillow, so Ellie didn’t get a moment to herself to reflect on her own – _absolutely selfish –_ actions until this morning, seeing as how she hadn’t even moved from her spot since last night. 

Peeking out from the edge of her blanket cocoon to stare at the blinking lights on her clock, it flashed a bleary 10:07 AM back at her. 

Blinking slowly, Ellie watched it as it changed to 10:08 AM, then 10:09 AM. 

An eerie calm drifted over the woman as she watched time literally ticking away, and all of her questions eventually sloughed away, leaving her even more exhausted than she had been moments before. A small part of her worried over whether or not she should try and send even just a simple text off to the office so that they wouldn’t be too concerned about her absence, but even the thought of rallying herself from this rut felt _fake_ to her. 

Even if she rarely slept through the night now, with or without the aid of her prescription of doxepin, Ellie tried to be up and out of her apartment before 6 AM on her better days; if she wasn’t up the night before wrapping up a case or finishing a series of reports, she would try and start her commute earlier. 

But today, thinking about anything beyond her safe, warm fortress in the middle of her bed left the hunter floundering in the void of her sudden apathy. 

Heaviness weighed on her with enough force that she seemed chained to her place on the bed, the memories – even if it was _only_ a dream – leaving the hunter feeling far more depressed than she could usually handle. From feeling powerless from her inability to protect herself in a dream to the frustration she held at freezing in the face of a volatile situation, Ellie couldn’t find it within herself to gather up the courage to put on a brave face and confront the issues that haunted the UCI department. 

As 10:12 AM blinked at her, she figured that the precinct could manage to get on at work without her; they’d done it before she was recruited to UCI, and they’d continue to do it long after she... _retired_. One day without hearing from Officer Eloise Carter wouldn’t cause a massive panic. 

She attempted to roll onto her side to hide even further within the soft fortress she’d made for herself when her phone buzzed on her counter, alerting her to the millionth notification she’d gotten that morning. Was it another e-mail, or maybe a text from Jaws? She hadn’t checked, and wouldn’t until the guilt pushed her to do so. 

Curling more into herself, Ellie silently begged for them to all leave her alone; she just wanted to stop existing, just for today, so she wouldn’t have to deal with these feelings anymore. This wasn’t the first time she’d felt this way, but it was certainly the most _smothering_ experience as of yet. 

Another notification’s sound trilled from her phone, and then silence filled the apartment. If the hunter tried really hard, she could hear the distant trains and quiet rumbling of cars outside her window. 

For once in a very long time, she noticed how _nice_ the silence sounded to her, even if it left her completely isolated. 

Exhaling slowly through her nose, Ellie finally closed her eyes, willing herself to go back to bed, even if it would only be a light nap; she felt like she really _had_ run around the Jacob K. Javits convention center all night, and her legs were cramping horridly as if to assure her of that fact. A part of her figured if Jaws was there to listen to her, he’d have a more concrete answer to explain away her fatigue – but, for right now, the woman would blame her current issues on the fact that she was filled with adrenaline from waking up in such a fright from the nightmare, and that this depressive episode was an extension of the horrid things she’d seen in her dream. 

_Nothing supernatural about that,_ she told herself. _Plenty of people's bodies do weird things after a nightmare._

The white noise of New York City traffic drifted into her apartment and almost lulled her to sleep, until her phone started ringing. Part of her almost let it go to voice mail – until she recognized the tune, and her heart skipped a beat as a different kind of panic overtook her. 

Roughly kicking at the blankets cocooning her and stumbling over herself as she half-leaped from the bed, Ellie barely managed to make it to her phone in time to answer it. 

“Hey, Frankie! I’m sorry, I was in bed,” she chirped, her voice cracking as it pitched from disuse. If he noticed, he didn’t say anything. “How are you?” Her words were stumbling over one another, and she felt her face heat up in anticipation of what he would say – and, honestly, the officer felt like a schoolgirl with a crush on a friend’s older brother. It would’ve made her groan in any other scenario, but this was _Frankie_ she was talking to. 

And, boy, didn’t _that_ guy know how to show a girl a good time. 

His soft laugh came over the speaker and hit her with a wave of chills. “Nothin’ much, doll. I wanted to catch up with ya when you came to work, but no one’s seen ya today. Everythin’ okay?” 

Half-shrugging, the hunter replied, “Yeah! Everything’s good. I got shaken up from yesterday, that’s all.” 

She could almost hear him nodding as he said, his words soft and nearly a whisper, “I heard about that, yeah. I saw the guy after, don’t you worry. But, hey –” His voice changed in tone and volume so quickly, Ellie almost had to do a double-take to see this was the same Frankie she was talking to. “– did you wanna reschedule our thing from yesterday?” 

Her stomach dropped as she pulled the phone away from her ear to grind out a curse. “Oh _fuck_ , that was last night?” She kicked herself mentally, wanting to scream into the sky, _How could you have forgotten so easily?_

From the other end of the line, she could hear the other officer’s voice as he spoke – his words still coming out fast and loud as he tried to think of an excuse to just drop the date they had planned – but Ellie cut in and said, “No, no, Frank, _listen_. I promised you a real, honest to God dinner. Just because I forgot doesn’t mean anything, okay?” She slowly moved away from the counter and made her way over to her desk, feeling the ache in her knee from where she’d landed on it trying to reach her phone. Flipping through her calendar, the man was absolutely silent on the other end as she muttered to herself. 

Nothing was in her notes in this notebook, and that calendar said she had nothing planned; this sticky note had issues for tomorrow for her to deal with, and that random piece of paper would need to be filed before she forgot about it again. 

Finally, Ellie asked, “Are you free tonight?” 

“How about right now?” 

The way his voice dropped again – low, _far_ _lower_ than he would talk to her out in the open – and another feeling started to bloom in her chest. It was a confusing, albeit _nice_ one, and it had her feeling like a schoolgirl again. “Uh...” The hunter hesitated, a small, uncomfortable laugh escaping her as she looked at her reflection staring at her from across the apartment. “I mean, _right_ _now_ now? Or...” She trailed off, unsure of where this conversation was going and wanting him to be the one to confirm what she _thought_ this was all coming to. 

Frankie laughed in the way that made her both feel like they were the only two people in all of New York and like she wasn’t getting the joke he was trying to tell her, but eventually, he answered, his voice still low, “I’ll come by in about an hour. That should be enough time for you, right?” 

Her eyes flitted to the clock on her bedside table, and it flashed a bleary 10:28 AM at her. Pulling her hair behind her ear, the officer replied, the uneasiness slowly uncoiling from within her chest, “Yeah. That’ll be fine. See you then.” 

He didn’t even say goodbye as he hung up the phone, but it didn’t really register to Ellie at the moment. _She_ was going on a date with _Frankie._ It’d been... months, really, since the last time he asked her; she felt like she was on cloud nine, from the way she felt with her blood pounding in her ears. 

Maybe he was finally going to ask her; why else would he be so quick to reschedule their unimportant date for _right now?_

Ellie didn’t want to get her hopes too high, but she felt like today was going to be different between them. 

A girl could dream, anyway. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Introducing: Frankie!! He's the guy mentioned in a prior chapter that she had a date planned with. He works in the evidence locker and often gets the shaft when it comes to working the locker because he tends to get stuck with UCI's things. Ellie tries to make it up to those she feels gets roped into their shenanigans because she's a GOOD GIRL and doesn't want her coworkers to hate her (even if she thinks they hate her for being UCI lol).
> 
> Hope y'all enjoy! Kind of took forever to write this since I, myself, was feeling like the void. Snow days do that to you I suppose.


End file.
